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MORAL SCIENCE 

OR 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF OBLIGATION, 




JAMES H. FAIRCHILD, 

LATE PRESIDENT OF OBERLIN COLLEGE. 



KtDiatD Cot rum. 



NEW-YORK: ^ V^V X 

SHELDON & COMPANY. 



. 3 1\ 




Copyright, 1892, by James H. Fairchild. 



PREFACE. 



In 1869 the author published his work on Moral Phi- 
losophy which has been in use until the present time in 
various Colleges and other Schools east and west. The 
author's confidence in the doctrines set forth in the book 
has not diminished with the lapse of time, but in the gen- 
eral progress of ethical thought and discussion, the appear- 
ance of new ideas or theories, and the disappearance of 
some of the older statements, a revision of the work has 
become necessary. 

The principal changes introduced will be found in con- 
nection with the discussion of theories, and are intended to 
adjust the discussion to the present condition of ethical 
thought. Changes in other parts are verbal or formal 
rather than essential. The use of the term Science in 
place of Philosophy, in the title, has no special significance. 
It is simply a conformity to prevailing usage. 

It has not seemed desirable to enlarge the book by the 
introduction of treatises on the Will and the Sensibility. 
Of course no view of obligation can be presented which 
does not assume some position in reference to the essential 
qualities of personality, and the conditions and limits of 
personal responsibility. Ethics must have its basis in a 



PREFACE. 



system of psychology ; and the study of Ethics naturally 
follows the study of the essential elements of human nat- 
ure. Such is the ordinary arrangement in our colleges 
and schools of learning. This treatise is adjusted to such 
an order of study. The reader or student will find no 
difficulty in supplying the underlying philosophical prin- 
ciples assumed in the treatise. 

The system here presented is developed from natural 
and rational facts and principles ; but it will be found to 
be in harmony with the teaching of the Scriptures, and it 
is essentially the system of Christian Ethics. But refer- 
ences to the Scriptures have not been made for the sake 
of establishing by the authority of Revelation the leading 
facts and principles of obligation. The Scriptures are a 
great storehouse of philosophical and ethical truth which 
no student or thinker can afford to overlook. 

Oberlin College, December, 1892. 



{ 



CONTENTS. 



PART I.— THEORETICAL. 

CHAPTER I. 

PAGES 

Introductory Definitions. — Divisions of the science — Topics 
treated of — Obligation a simple idea — Undefinable — Attempted 
definitions — A moral being or person — Essential attributes — 
Intellect — Sensibility — Free-will — A moral act — The moral 
element, where found — Different forms of voluntary action — 
More exact location of the moral element — Character and inten- 
tion — Two kinds of moral action 13-19 



CHAPTER II. 

Right or Virtuous Action. — The true good — Absolute and 
relative good — Illustrations of the two — Mere animal life valuable 
— The summum bonum — No comparison of the two forms of 
good — Happiness — Obligation, how perceived — Regard to our 
own good — Of virtue as good — Of benevolence as virtue — Be- 
nevolence in consciousness 20-28 



CHAPTER III. 

Wrong or Sinful Action. — Its nature — Its motive — Its form, 
how determined — Gratification of desire not sin — Sin subordi- 
nates reason — No rational end in sin — Sin not a choice of evil 
— Sin not selfishness — Impossibility of making one's own good 
the supreme end — Sin in consciousness — Self -gratification not 
the intelligent end — Sin subjection to impulse, or carnal-minded- 
ness — Desires and passions not sinful — Their uses 2 9 - 37 



CHAPTER IV. 

Of the Particular Virtues. — Benevolence the root — Consti- 
tutes right character — Its relation to the particular virtues, and 
to right acts — Love — Gratitude — Justice not an independent 

5 



6 



CONTENTS. 



PAGES 

virtue — Mercy not opposed to justice — Self-denial — Veracity — 
» Humility — Faith — Obedience — The teaching of Scripture — 
Misapprehensions of benevolence — Interdependence of the vir- 
tues 38-47 

CHAPTER V. 

Of Particular Vices. — Their common element — Their relation 
to sinful character — Their origin — Sensuality — Ambition — Av- 
arice — Pride and vanity — Selfishness — The desire not sinful — 
Malevolent impulses — Natural or impulsive goodness — Two 
characters possible — Apparent goodness — Right moral judg- 
ments — Kindly affections — Devotional feelings — Impulsive vir- 
tues, their relation to true virtue — Imitative goodness — Deficiency 
exhibited — Are the impulsive virtues sinful? — Their utility 48-57 

CHAPTER VI. 

Additional Remarks and Inferences. — Universality of the law 
of benevolence — Works of supererogation impossible — Morality 
personal, not transferable — Ambiguity of the term character — 
The seat of moral depravity — Total moral depravity — The moral 
change required — Relation of emotion to the moral state — Moral 
character in consciousness — Moral consistency 58-63 

CHAPTER VII. 

Right and Wrong — Duty, Known and Unknown — Need 
of a Revelation. — Ambiguity of the terms right and wrong 

— Absolute right and wrong — Relative right and wrong — Ob- 
jective and subjective right and wrong — Right and wrong per 
se — The expedient and the right — Our knowledge of the right 

— End and means — Doing evil that good may come — Least of 
two evils — Known and unknown duty — Need of revelation to 
furnish motive and to indicate objective duty 64-72 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Conscience — Is it a Guide? — Definition and office — Impulse of 
conscience — Approval and condemnation — /Esthetic conscience 

— Conscience as a guide — Intervention of judgment — Different 
views — Whately and Alexander — Sins of ignorance — Rational 
conscience the guide, not the emotional, nor the aesthetic — Con- 
scientiousness — Paul — Honesty — Sincerity — Conscience edu- 
cated, enlightened, perverted — Feeling of obligation 73~82 



CONTENTS. 



7 



CHAPTER IX. 

PAGES 

Unity or Simplicity of Moral Action. — Virtue and sin con- 
tradictory — Their coexistence impossible — Different hypotheses 
to explain their coexistence — Imperfect powers — From the fall 
— From past sin — Right intention with wrong thoughts and feel- 
ings — Mixed motives — Partial regard for good — Lack of inten- 
sity — Right ultimate choice and wrong acts — The teaching of the 
Scriptures — Practical teaching — N. W. Taylor — Objections and 
answers — Prevailing consciousness — Negative testimony — No 
room for improvement — Degrees of goodness — Degrees of sin- 
fulness — Temptation and guilt — Knowledge of past sinfulness — 
General bearing of the doctrine 83-98 



CHAPTER X. 

Theories of Obligation. — The question — Different answers — 
Reason for the difference — Socrates and Plato — Aristotle — 
Doctrine of the Stoics — Of the Epicureans — Modern views — 
Paley — Taylor — Difficulties — Psychological error — No freedom 
— Misrepresents benevolence — Mistakes the motive — Makes no 
difference between the good and the bad — Does not accord with 
Scripture — Utilitarianism — Misapplication of the term — Needed 
discrimination — "Holy happiness" — Kind of happiness to be 
sought — Spencer's " Ethics " 99-H3 



CHAPTER XI. 

Theories of Obligation. — Of right as ultimate — Of obligation 
as originating in the will of God — Difficulties — Reason not ul- 
timate — Obligation known intuitively — ; No character in God — 
Relativity of morality — Unscriptural — Founded in the reason or 
nature of God — Of spiritual worthiness as ultimate — Hickok's 
view — Janet's — Seelye's — Personal perfection not the true aim 
The term good — Ambiguous use — Virtue as ultimate — Com- 
placency not virtue — Virtue a quality of choice, not its object — 
Of abstract right as ultimate — Axiom of the theory — Does not 
explain the virtues — Gives no unity to virtue — Rightness not the 
final motive — Maxim of the theory — Acting from principle — 
Rightness not ultimate — Incidental advantages of the theory of 
benevolence 1 14-129 



8 



CONTENTS. 



PART II.— PRACTICAL ETHICS. 

PAGES 

Preliminary Remarks 130-131 



FIRST DIVISION. 

CHAPTER I. 

Government — Its Nature and Foundation. — Definitions — 
Relation of sanctions to government — Object of government — 
Its right to exist — The right to govern — Duty to govern — 
Designation of the ruler — Form of government — Extent of au- 
thority — Not dependent on desire of the governed 132-135 



CHAPTER II. 

The Divine Government. — Its constitution — Why God as- 
sumes the government — The divine law — How known to men 
— Revealed law — Authority of examples — The Saviour's ex- 
ample — Genuine virtue required — Personality of the law — Ap- 
plication to communities — Dealing with nations — National sins . . 136-143 



CHAPTER III. 

Penalties under the Divine Government. — Nature of penal- 
ty — Effects of penalty — Relation of penalty to desert — True 
reason of penalty — Its extent — Discipline and penalty — Neces- 
sity of penalty in the divine government — Degree and duration — 
Guilt everlasting — Natural consequences not penalty — Physical 
law and penalty — Remorse and penalty — Providential conse- 
quences 144-153 



CHAPTER IV. 

Civil Government. — Its foundation — Right to govern — The form 
of government — A legitimate government — A tyranny — Constitu- 
tions — Not a social compact — Right and duty of voting — The 
ruler a servant — Doctrine of instruction — Right of the majority 
— Principle of representation — The will of the governed a con- 
trolling element — General tendency to democracy — Relation of 
law to righteousness — Mistakes 154-163 



CONTENTS. 



9 



CHAPTER V. 

PAGES 

Penalties in Civil Government. — Uses of penalties — Danger- 
ous tendency — Capital punishment — Reasons for it — Objec- 
tions , . 164-171 



CHAPTER VI. 

Limits of Obedience to Civil Government. — Government sub- 
ordinate — The higher law applied to a democratic state — No 
general formula — Laws, just, indifferent, unjust — Two possible 
courses — Duty of a subordinate magistrate — Right of revolution 
— Apprehended tendency — Errors in two directions 172-181 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Relations of Nations to Each Other. — Obligation of 
nations limited — Laws of nations — Duty to respect each other's 
sovereignty — Duty in case of rebellion — In treaties — In com- 
mercial intercourse — Duty of self-preservation — The rightfulness 
of war — In case of resistance at home — In case of aggression 
from without — In defense of the weak — In suppression of out- 
rage — In justifiable revolution — Objections — The true aim in 
war — Duties in war 182-192 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Family Government. — Has a natural foundation — Limited in its 
subjects — Wide in its application to interests — Mode of constitu- 
tion — Question of headship — A relation of confidence — To be 
entered upon with deliberation — Maintained with care — A nat- 
ural sphere for each — Relations of the family to the state and to 
society 193-199 



CHAPTER IX. 

Duties of Parent and Child — of Teacher and Pupil. — Chief 
work of the family — Place of parental affection — Leading duty 
of the parent — Duty of obedience and its natural termination — 
Claim of the child — Limit of obedience — Duty in maturity to- 
ward dependent parents — The teacher's authority — Its extent — 
Need of closer definition — The pupil's duty — Unnatural antago- 
nism — Mutual regard — Unfavorable tendencies — Extreme in- 
dividualism — Independence of opinion 200-209 



IO CONTENTS. 



SECOND DIVISION. 

PERSONAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGES 

General Principles. — Basis of rights — The comprehensive right 
— Inalienable rights — Basis of duties — Correlation of rights 
and duties — Positive and negative precepts — Subjects of rights 
and duties — The rights of brutes — Superior right of rational 
beings . . . . . 210-215 



CHAPTER II. 

Rights — Life. — Basis of the right — Guilt of murder — Malice and 
hatred — Manslaughter — Related crimes — Right of self-preser- 
vation limited — Self-defense — Protection of property — Carry- 
ing weapons — Dueling — Objections to self-defense — Euthana- 
sia 216-222 



CHAPTER III. 

Rights — Liberty. — Definition and extent — Basis of the right — 
Misapprehension of its origin — Application to different powers 
— Principle of toleration — Freedom of the press — Free discus- 
sion — Intervention of government in worship and education — 
Subjective limitations — Respect to the consciences of others — 
Use of definite rules — Violations of liberty — Its defense 223-231 



CHAPTER IV. 

Rights — Reputation. — The interest involved — How a good — 
The precept — Temptations to its violation — Duty of exposing 
wrong — Slander in truth-telling 232-236 



CHAPTER V. 

Rights — Property. — Origin of the right — The precept — Prop- 
erty, how acquired — Transferable — Right of discovery — Effect 
of long possession — Things not to be appropriated — Animals 
made property, human beings not — Limitations of the right — 
Law of exchange — Duty of the vender — Standard of value — 



CONTENTS. 



Managing the market — Cicero's example — Law of wages — 
Woman's wages — Work that is above wages — Violations of the 
right of property — Bankrupt laws — Prevalence of fraud upon the • 
government — Mischief of repudiation — Immorality of gambling 
— Conflict of labor and capital 237-248 



CHAPTER VI. 

Duties — Piety. — Origin of duties — Nature of piety — Its rela- 
tion to religion — Morality and religion — Morality attained by 
religion — Opposite of piety — Duty of worship — Possibility of 
prayer — Speculative objections — Social and public prayer — The 
Sabbath — Change of day — Obligation permanent — Proper ob- 
servance — Duty of promoting religion 249-258 



CHAPTER VII. 

Duties — Philanthropy — Patriotism. — Nature of philanthropy 

— Its relation to religion — Its scope — Proper test — Misan- 
thropy — Patriotism as a virtue — Required by benevolence — 
Things opposed to patriotism 259-264 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Duties — Self-Culture. — Its nature and reasons — Extends to all 
the faculties — Spiritual culture — Its relation to virtuous character 

— Intellectual culture — Things to be held subordinate — Kind of 
knowledge to be sought — Culture of the sensibility — Gives power 

— Relation to moral character — Control indirect — Associations 

— Books — Perfection of character. 265-272 



CHAPTER IX. 

Duties — Self-Culture. — ^Esthetic — Its expensiveness — Elevat- 
ing tendency — Increases power — False refinement — Fastidious- 
ness — The cultivated lady — Culture, how attained — Degree of 
attention proper — Other demands to be considered — Physical 
culture a duty — Health — Manual skill — Manners and habits — 
Predominance of the soul. 273-283 



CHAPTER X. 

Duties — Usefulness. — The true aim — The natural impulse — 
Proper occupation — Notoriety not usefulness — Wealth and its 



12 CONTEXTS. 

PAGES 

uses — Special obligation of the rich — Social influence — Diffi- 
culties and duties — Special duties of the young — The great 
want 284-293 



CHAPTER XL 

Duties — Fidelity. — Faithfulness in contracts — Binding force — 
Threats and promises — In what sense binding — When null — 
Conditions — Express and implied contracts — Effect of the oath 
— Marriage engagements 294-302 



CHAPTER XII. 

Duties — Veracity. — Its nature and obligation — Significance of 
the oath — Its rightfulness — Profanity — Violations of veracity — 
Limits of the obligation — Words and gestures — Legal practice 
— Instinct of veracity 303-310 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Duties — Chastity. — Nature of the duty — Effect and criminality 
of unchastity — Injustice of society — Marriage provided for — Its 
nature and conditions — Moral law of divorce — Civil law — Incest 
— Concluding remarks 31 1-3 18 



1 



MORAL SCIENCE. 

PART I -THEORETICAL. 

CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY DEFINITIONS AND REMARKS. 

MORAL SCIENCE is the science of obligation or duty. 
It states and analyzes the facts connected with obligation, 
and determines principles of action and rules Definitions 
of duty. More particularly, the subjects of and topics, 
which it treats are moral beings, moral action, moral law, 
moral government, and personal rights and duties. It is 
often called the science of ethics, and is divided into two 
parts, theoretical and practical. Theoretical ethics pre- 
sents the principles of the science, while practical ethics 
applies those principles and solves particular problems of 
duty. The treatment of special cases is sometimes called 
casuistry. 

Obligation, the theme of ethical philosophy, admits of 
no definition, except by a synonym. The idea conveyed by 
the term is a simple one, incapable of analy- obligation 
sis. Its import is manifest to every rational notdefinable - 
being, given immediately in his own thought. It cannot 
be imparted from one to another ; and every attempt at 

13 



14 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



definition or elucidation proves abortive. Thus, Paley 
says, "Obligation is nothing more than an inducement 
of sufficient strength, and resulting in some way from 
the command of another;" and N. W. Taylor, "Moral 
obligation is the binding influence of that necessity which 
a moral being is under of performing that action which is 
decisively proved to be the best action." All such defini- 
tions tend to bewilder. The thought in every rational 
soul is clear and unequivocal ; and its existence is proved 
in the universal use and apprehension of such terms as 
ought, duty, right, and wrong. Not so much the nature 
of obligation, as the grounds and conditions of its exist- 
ence and our apprehension of it, is the proper subject of 
inquiry. 

A moral being is a being to whom obligation pertains, 
of whom it can be said, he ought or ought not ; who 
a moral being affirms of himself, I ought or ought not. Such 
or person. a b e j n g we ca \\ a person. He differs from all 
other beings, not merely in the degree of his intelligence, 
but in the kind of intelligence with which he is endowed. 
Possessing some faculties and susceptibilities in common 
with beings of a lower order, in others he is peculiar, and 
is thus separated from them by a line which they can 
never pass. 

The attributes essential to moral agency are commonly 
and properly designated as intellect, sensibility, and free- 
Essentiai will. The intellect is the general faculty of 

attributes: . . ... . - , 

intellect. perceiving and knowing, and embraces the 
faculties of sense, memory, imagination, judgment, and 
reason. The perception of the true end of life, and thence 
of obligation, is an intellectual act ; and thus intellect is 
essential to moral agency or personality. 

Sensibility is the susceptibility of pleasure and pain, of 



DEFINITIONS AND REMARKS. 



15 



natural good and evil. Such a susceptibility is the only 
conceivable channel of the idea of good and evil ; and 
this idea is the necessary antecedent of that sensibility 
of obligation, and hence of right and wrong. necessary. 
Thus, every moral being must be a sentient being ; only on 
this condition can he be a subject of obligation. It might 
be added that obligation terminates on sentient beings, or 
is due only to beings susceptible of natural good and evil. 
Hence, if there were no sentient life, obligation would lack 
both subject and object. In a world destitute of sensi- 
bility, whatever intelligence there might be, no obligation 
or thought of obligation could ever arise. 

Free-will, or the voluntary faculty, as involved in moral 
action, is the power of choosing or refusing the true end 
of life, as presented by the intelligence. The Free-wm 
possession of this faculty is implied in the very necessary, 
idea of obligation. To affirm obligation of a being desti- 
tute of the faculty of free action is impossible in the nature 
of the case. Power for any act, in the sense of ability to 
do or not to do, is a self-evident condition of obligation to 
that act. Ability to do, in its proper sense, carries with 
it the ability not to do; and thus free-will is an essential 
attribute of personality. It may be spoken of as the 
characteristic attribute, because obligation always accom- 
panies it. 

A moral act is an act to which obligation pertains, of 
which we affirm that it ought or ought not to be done. 
The performance of such an act involves good a moral act— 

• hi • , • , 1 . approved or 

or ill desert, praiseworthiness or blameworthi- disapproved, 
ness. The doer is approved or disapproved. This judg- 
ment is wholly peculiar, incapable of analysis, not resolv- 
able into a judgment of wisdom or unwisdom, of utility 
or inutility, of aesthetic propriety or impropriety. It is a 



1 6 MORAL SCIENCE. 

moral approval or disapproval, a judgment perfectly appre- 
hended by every moral being. 

Where is found the moral element? Every moral act 
implies the activity of the three departments of the mind, 
Moral eie- involving thought, feeling, and willing, and is 

ment, where , 

found? oiten attended by outward or corporeal action. 

Does moral responsibility attach equally to each of these 
exercises, or to one alone ? Where resides the element of 
morality ? 

Not in the outward action. The muscular movement is 
connected with the action of the mind by a law of neces- 
Not in the sity, and is inevitable when the conditions are 

outward 

action. supplied. We do not know the character of 

an act from the outward manifestation. It is but an in- 
dex of the internal state, often ambiguous ; and the moral 
character is the same with the same mental action, whether 
the outward action follows or not. 

Not in the movement of the intelligence ; because that 
movement is governed by necessity. Our conceptions and 
Not in the judgments are necessarily what they are. No 
mteihgence. praiseworthiness or blameworthiness accrues to 
the agent directly from the action of the intelligence. A 
judgment or conception may be adequate or inadequate, 
correct or incorrect, and in this view right or wrong ; but 
it is not an object of moral approbation or disapprobation. 
We praise or blame the agent for the moral disposition 
which leads to the just or unjust conception or judgment. 
For the disposition, we hold him responsible directly ; for 
the action of the intelligence, only indirectly. 

Nor is the moral element found in the movement of the 
sensibility. That movement is necessary. The emotions 
result from their exciting causes. With given conditions 
they must be as they are. They are pleasant or painful, de- 



DEFINITIONS AND REMARKS. 



17 



sirable or undesirable ; but in themselves not praiseworthy 
or blameworthy. We morally approve or disapprove of 
the disposition or conduct which produces or Not in the 
fosters particular emotions, and regard the sensibility, 
emotion as an index, more or less sure, of moral character. 

The element of morality is found in the action of the 
will alone. Here is free, responsible action. Whatever 
motive or inducement to voluntary action may Found in 

. voluntary 

exist, the agent himself is the responsible action, 
cause of the action, and hence is properly approved or 
disapproved, according to the nature of that action. To 
this, and to this only, does obligation directly attach ; 
when the voluntary action is wholly such as it ought to be, 
all present obligation is met. This is a necessary, intuitive 
judgment, and must be accepted as an axiom in morals. 
Of its truthfulness there can be no doubt in any mind, 
except such doubt as may result from obscurity of thought 
or expression. A moral agent may be held responsible 
indirectly for thoughts, and feelings, and external actions, 
because these are more or less modified or controlled by 
the will ; but all this responsibility attaches directly to the 
voluntary action. If thought, or feeling, or external action 
be ever spoken of as involving moral character, it is because 
it is regarded as voluntary. Upon this point there is prac- 
tical agreement among men : the differences, if they exist, 
are speculative and theoretical. 

But voluntary action exists in different forms. Does 
the element of morality attach directly to all these forms? 
The act of the student in attending a recita- Different 

1 1 • 1 nn forms of vol- 

tion is voluntary— hence is a moral act. \\ here untary action, 
in this process of voluntary action do we find the moral 
character? Nearest to our observation and most super- 
ficial is the volition, or series of volitions, which causes the 



i8 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



outward act of coming; but these volitions do not reveal 
character, because they do not involve it. The good and 
volitions and the bad alike put forth these volitions. Back 

executive . 

purposes. of these volitions we find a more general pur- 
pose, from which the volitions spring — the purpose to secure 
an education, or still further back, the purpose to gain in- 
fluence and power, to which education is a means. But 
in these more general purposes, although voluntary states, 
we find no revelation of moral character. The good and 
the bad alike cherish the same general purposes, and pursue 
them by the same means — sit side by side in the same 
class. Inquiring still further, we find in one a voluntary 
choice of the proper end or object of life, that end which 
the intelligence approves. His other purposes and voli- 
uitimate tions are all subordinate to this ultimate choice, 
choice. anc | are execu tive of it. Another does not ac- 

cept this end of life, but freely declines it. Some other 
scheme, some impulse of desire or passion, occupies him, 
and with reference to this unworthy end he forms his pur- 
poses, and puts forth his volitions. Here we have the key 
Exact place to the character of the action and of the agent ; 

of the moral . , . . 

element. and in this ultimate choice of the right end, or 
refusal to choose it, which is still a choice, we necessarily lo- 
cate the moral element. In this respect the two agents and 
their actions morally differ ; while in their subordinate pur- 
poses, and executive volitions, and outward actions, they may 
be alike. One conforms to obligation, the other does not. 

The general conviction that the moral element of action 
is here found is indicated in the popular expression that 
character as tne character of an act depends upon the 
intention. intention. The expression is true of the ulti- 
mate intention — the voluntary attitude in reference to the 
rational end of life. It is not true of any subordinate pur- 



DEFINITIONS AND REMARKS. 



*9 



pose or intention, or of any action which is executive of a 
more remote choice. The character does not depend, in 
the case supposed, upon the intention to gain an education, 
or to secure influence and power, but upon the choice of 
the end which these are to subserve. All subordinate or 
executive action derives its character from this choice, and 
is made necessary by the choice, in the sense that, the 
convictions of the intelligence remaining the same, the ex- 
ecutive action must be as it is while the ultimate choice 
remains. The young man who proposes to obtain an edu- 
cation to serve God and his fellow-men, pursues his course 
because he believes it the proper mode of accomplishing 
his end. While he believes this, he cannot turn aside from 
his course without abandoning his ultimate end. If he enters 
into business while he believes that a course of study is the 
proper means, he abandons his end. This he Executive 
is always free to do, and hence executive action actlon free - 
is properly free action ; but its morality is wholly dependent 
upon the fundamental choice. Hence obligation, strictly 
speaking, attaches only to this ultimate choice — action in 
reference to that end of life which the intelligence approves, 
that predominant state of the will which determines all 
other action. When this is right, the action is right, the 
character is right, so far as pertains to morality. 

Two kinds of moral action, and only two, are possible. The 
agent may accept the right end of life, and thus his action 
become right, virtuous; or he may reject that Two posi _ 
right end, and thus his action become wrong, tlon3 only> 
sinful. Xo neutral position is possible to a rational being, 
because, when the right end is proposed to his intelligence, 
he must accept or not accept ; and not to accept is to reject. 
Moral freedom lies in the ability to accept or to reject this 
end — an ability which is essential to moral agency. 



CHAPTER II. 



RIGHT ACTION OR VIRTUE — GOOD. 

RIGHT or virtuous action is the action which we morally 
approve, and for which we pronounce the agent praise- 
worthy. It consists in the choice of the right 
end of life, that end which the intelligence 
approves. To be virtuous is to be reasonable. It is to 
accept and treat as good and valuable what the intelligence 
presents as good. The virtuous man is the reasonable man, 
the man that follows his perceptions and convictions. It is 
in the light of these perceptions that obligation arises, and 
in following them obligation is met. 

But what is the good which the intelligence recognizes, 
and in the presence of which obligation is seen — that good 
The true which every moral being holds himself bound 
goocL to respect? What does the reason present as 

truly valuable ? This is a psychological question, yet every 
theory of morals involves an answer to it, expressed or 
implied. 

Absolute good, that which is valuable in itself and for 
itself, is found only in connection with being — sentient 
Absolute being — that is, being endowed with sensibil- 
good ' ity. It consists in the satisfaction of that sen- 

sibility — satisfaction in every form in which it can exist. 
Fullness of satisfaction in the case of any sentient being 
is completeness of good in his case. It is well-being, or 
happiness, or blessedness — all words of the same general 

20 



RIGHT ACTION OR VIRTUE — GOOD. 



21 



import. The capacity for such satisfaction or good gives 
to a being its absolute worth and importance ; and in the 
experience of such satisfaction is absolute good, or ultimate 
and final value. In a state of dissatisfaction, or of pain and 
misery, is found absolute and ultimate evil — that which is 
evil in itself and on its own account. Absolute good is no 
abstraction or mere conception ; it is an actual experience 
or state of sentient being. It is valuable for what it is in 
itself, and is necessarily regarded by every rational being 
as having intrinsic worth. 

Relative good, on the other hand, is good that is valued 
for its uses. It is good for the purposes it can serve in the 
satisfaction of sentient being. All forms of Relative 
material good are of this nature. A universe good ' 
of it would have no value, unless there were beings to use 
and to enjoy it. When its utility fails, it ceases to be ac- 
counted good. Robinson Crusoe, in his exile, spurned the 
lump of gold because it was not iron. Iron he could use, 
gold he could not. When about to return to civilized life, 
he takes with him the gold, because it will be useful. Thus 
relative good is dependent for its value upon its usefulness 
to sentient being, its adaptedness to produce satisfaction. 
Absolute good is satisfaction itself, and is not contemplated 
with reference to anything beyond. 

Our instinctive discrimination of these two forms of 
good may be illustrated by the supposition that we are 
passing through an uninhabited region, beyond Instinctive 

. . discrimination 

the reach of any beings who can appropriate its illustrated, 
advantages. We traverse fields of waving grain — good if 
there were beings to use it, but worthless where it stands. 
We heedlessly trample it down, kindle our camp fires in 
the midst of it. In itself it is good for nothing, and there 
is nothing to which it can sustain a relative value. We 



22 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



regret that so much which might produce good should 
be wasted, and the sight even of herds of animals to feed 
and thrive upon it would be a relief. For their sake we 
would save it ; for itself we do not. Trees loaded w r ith 
the choicest fruits overhang our path. We remorselessly 
shake down the fruit, appropriate what we can use with 
satisfaction, and carelessly trample on and leave the rest. 
If there were beings to use it, it would be good. In itself 
it has no value. The apprehension that others might fol- 
low and need the fruit would make us careful. We pluck 
the most beautiful flowers without misgiving. So far as 
they please us, we account them good. For the rest, we 
account them as nothing. The thought that invisible in- 
telligences might rejoice in them would lead us to spare 
them. We mar and destroy the most beautiful trees ; for 
a beautiful tree is good for nothing beyond its uses, and 
beyond the reach of sentient being it has no use. If those 
trees should utter sighs and groans, as in the fables of 
Virgil and Tasso, we should shrink appalled from our work. 
They must then be regarded for what they are in them- 
selves. They cease to be merely relative good. A being 
endowed with intellect meets us — angelic in its powers, 
if you please, but, if conceivable, destitute of sensibility. 
Xo thrill _of pleasure, no twinge of pain ever moves it. 
All experiences are equally indifferent to it ; it is destitute 
of experience, like a stone or tree. W r hen we fully under- 
stand the case, we regard the being as like any mere force 
of nature, good for what it can bring to pass, and good for 
nothing else. If we can appropriate this intelligence to 
ourselves, we do it without scruple. Without such ap- 
propriation it is wasted power. Add to this intelligence 
a powerful will, if this is conceivable. The case is not 
altered. The being thus endowed is still only a power, 



RIGHT ACTION OR VIRTUE — GOOD. 



good for what it can accomplish. You may attach the 
being to yourself as an advantage, make it your slave, and 
no wrong is done. Nothing is due to it ; the only ques- 
tion is, how can it be best used? Unless it can be em- 
ployed in the service of sentient being, it is wasted good. 
Add to this being feeling, sensibility, a susceptibility of 
pleasure and pain, and the case is entirely changed. Here 
is the susceptibility of absolute good. The being has 
claims to regard on its own account — has interests and 
rights of its own which must be respected. Any use to 
which you can put the being, without interfering with the 
good there is in its own life, is legitimate. A worm lies 
in our path, repulsive and loathsome. It is nothing to us ; 
it is something to itself and in itself. Thus far we have 
trampled on beauty and utility without scruple ; now we 
hesitate. This susceptibility of good, even in low and 
loathsome forms, makes us pause, and suggests obligation, 
questions of right and wrong. Cowper has well said : 

" I would not enter on my list of friends — - 
Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, 
Yet wanting sensibility — the man 
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm." 

That regard for lower animal life is not a mere poetic 
sentiment, is shown in the fact that the law of the land 
punishes cruelty to animals. If it be said that Lower ani- 

, , . . , , , . mais pro- 

tne law is intended to guard society against a tected by law. 
demoralizing influence, that the man and not the animal 
is the being cared for, it may be replied that cruelty to 
animals is demoralizing because it involves disregard of 
absolute good. Ornamental trees are protected by law, 
but simply as valuable to the owner or to the community, 
not as having themselves rights. 

Absolute and relative good are often found combined 



24 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



in the same being. Animal life is a good in itself, and a 
relative good as well — a utility. Indeed, in general, utility 
is the leading element in our estimate of the worth of 
animals. A good man is valuable both for the good of 
his own well-being and for his usefulness — the good he 
can do. We regard a child for what he is in himself and 
for what he is to others, but the two forms of good are still 
distinct in thought and in fact. Wherever we find being 
endowed with sensibility, there and there only is the ca- 
pacity for absolute good. Whatever can be used directly 
or indirectly for the satisfaction of this sensibility is relative 
good. 

Well-being, satisfaction, happiness, then, is true good — 
the summum bonum, not in the sense of the highest good, 
T , 0 , 1TV , m „ m but of the final, ultimate, absolute good — 

1 he summum ' ' o 

bonum. ^at in which all other goods terminate and 

find their value. To determine this good was the inquiry 
of the ancients in their pursuit of the summum bonum. 
Socrates evaded the question when he was pressed by 
Aristippus, the sophist. " Do you ask whether I know 
anything good for a fever? " " No." " Good for ophthal- 
mia?" "No." "Good for hunger?" "No." " Well, if 
you inquire for a good that is good for nothing, I neither 
know it nor do I want to." And yet the good which is 
good for nothing is the only good which has intrinsic value 
— the only good which we regard on its own account. 

Absolute and relative good admit of no comparison as 
to degree, or as to value. They are totally different in kind, 
Absolute and and can never be regarded as rival interests. 

relative good , . - 

differ in kind. Relative good has only a derived value, cor- 
responding with the absolute good, the well-being, which 
it is capable of producing. The comparison of the two 
which we seem to make in the use of animals is apparent, 



RIGHT ACTION OR VIRTUE — GOOD. 



^5 



not real. The comparison is in fact between the absolute 
good in the animal life, and the absolute good which can 
be secured in some other being by the use of the animal as 
a means of satisfaction. Relative good can never be, for 
its own sake, an object of regard. We always look beyond 
to the good on which it terminates, and value it for its 
bearing on that good. It is true that desire fastens on 
relative good as its object, and thus there is an apparent 
regard for it on its own account. Still, its value is not in 
itself and on its own account, but in its relation to sentient 
life, as is seen in the fact that it is utterly wasted and lost 
unless it has been used for the advantage of sentient being. 
If it were not an object of desire, it could not be even rela- 
tive good. Well-being, satisfaction, happiness, is a good, 
independently of any desire which may fasten upon it, and 
of any relation whatever. We always so regard it, and 
never fear lest it should be wasted ; for we do not look for 
any use of it beyond itself. The term happiness is used 
in this treatise, not in the low restricted sense The term 
given it by some writers, but as comprehensive happiness, 
of all satisfaction, blessedness, well-being, from the lowest 
forms of animal pleasure to the highest joys which dwell in 
the bosom of God. In this sense it is absolute good, and 
the only absolute good. The term well-being is sufficiently 
comprehensive and definite. 

In the presence or thought of this good, obligation is 
perceived. The intelligence sees the good to be an object 
of value, and with that perception arises the ideaofobii- 

• i r i f r i • gation, its 

idea ot obligation, of duty to respect it, to origin, 
treat it as good, to will it to all sentient beings, to stand 
ready to promote it, and, as occasion or opportunity arises, 
to put forth effort to promote it. This perception of obli- 
gation is entirely independent of the relation of the good 



26 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



to ourselves, or to any other particular being. The obli- 
gation to choose the good is dependent upon the value of 
the good in itself. The perception of this value brings 
with it the obligation. The being whose good is contem- 
plated may be wholly beyond our reach; he is still the 
object of benevolent regard. It may be impossible or 
even improper that anything should be done to promote 
that good ; this does not affect the obligation to will it. 
Hence, to every moral being, the only condition of obliga- 
tion is the perception of the good. In reference to the 
obligation to promote that good, there are other conditions. 
There must be a possibility of success in the effort, and on 
the whole it must seem wiser that the effort of the agent 
should take that direction, rather than another ; but inde- 
pendently of all such conditions, the obligation to will the 
well-being of all, to be well disposed toward it, still re- 
mains. We must be in a state of good-will toward a 
murderer, but we must not lift a hand to help him escape 
the penalty of his crime. 

Our own well-being is included in absolute good, the 
good of being, and hence is a proper object of our regard, 
our own good ^ * s as valuable as that of our neighbor, and 
mciuded. nQ more valuable. This is the place which 
the intelligence gives it, the place which it occupies in the 
primary obligation to choose or will the good ; but as an 
object toward which effort is to be directed, our own good 
sustains to us a very different relation. It lies within our 
reach as no other good does, and hence arises a special 
obligation to promote it. 

To choose or regard the good of being is primarily and 
directly binding upon all moral beings ; this is primary, 
fundamental, obligation. Right or virtuous action is con- 
formity to this obligation, and consists in choosing, or will- 



RIGHT ACTION OR VIRTUE — GOOD. 



27 



ing, or regarding universal well-being on its own account, 
for its own inherent value. This action is properly called 
Benevolence, to use the term in its strict ety- Right action 

... is benevo- 

mological meaning, as the willing of good. lence. 
The subject of the action must be a moral being, a person, 
with faculties to apprehend and choose the good ; the 
object of the action is sentient being — being capable of 
experiencing good. Hence, President Edwards properly 
defines benevolence as the love of being. It expresses a 
state of the will, not of the sensibility or of the intelligence. 
It is a voluntary exercise, and hence always possible to a 
moral being, and always obligatory. 

As a conscious exercise, it in general terminates on in- 
dividual beings, particular objects. The general statement 
of the obligation to choose the good of sentient b enevolence 

. in conscious- 

bemg, may not be thought of, or might not be ness. 
apprehended ; still, the duty is perceived in reference to 
every individual being, and every such being, as it is made 
an object of thought, becomes in the benevolent mind an 
object of regard. This necessarily follows from the very 
nature of benevolence, which is a choice of the good of 
being on account of the inherent value of the well-being, 
not on account of something agreeable or inviting in the 
particular object of regard. 

Thus, benevolence is, in its own nature, disinterested, 
and needs no qualifying term to indicate this attribute. It 
must be impartial, or it is not the choice of Impartiality 

1 r 1 t r 1 • ofbenevo- 

good tor its own value. Ii we embrace m our lence. 
regard one being and exclude another, whatever that exer- 
cise may be, it is not benevolence. Thus, the Saviour 
proposes as the test of virtuous love, the love which fulfills 
obligation, that it shall extend to enemies as to friends, to 
our neighbors as to ourselves. This is, in the very nature 



28 



Moral science. 



of the case, the characteristic of benevolence. To choose 
the good of one for its own sake is to choose the good of 
all, through all ranks of sentient beings, whether worthy 
or unworthy, even to God himself. 

It may be necessary to mention here that the term good 
is used by some writers to mean virtue or that voluntary 
of right attitude which is in accordance with obliga- 

action as , 

good. tion. To prevent ambiguity, the qualifying 

term moral is sometimes prefixed in this case. Thus, 
moral good should mean that course of action which is 
conformed to obligation, or virtue considered objectively. 
Virtue considered subjectively, as a quality of character, 
is sometimes called the good, but should rather be called 
goodness. 

Natural good, or w T ell-being and moral good, or virtue 
objectively considered, have a fixed and necessary relation 
correlation to each other. The conception of natural good 
moral good. logically and chronologically precedes that of 
moral good. The two ideas are utterly distinct, but the 
last can never arise in the mind but in connection with the 
first. These tw r o kinds of good admit of no comparison as 
to value or excellence, because they are totally unlike in 
kind. One is well-being, an experience of the sensibility ; 
the other is duty, or virtue, an attitude of the will. Vir- 
tue is also a good — that is, a relative good, as promotive 
of well-being. It is the grand condition of blessedness to 
moral beings. Great confusion arises from a careless use 
of the term good in these various senses. 



CHAPTER III. 



WRONG ACTION OR SIN. 

Wrong or sinful action is the action which we morally 
condemn, and for which we pronounce the agent blame- 
worthy. It is a refusal to meet obligation or Nature 0 f 
duty, a refusal to be benevolent, or to will the sinful action ' 
good of being as in itself valuable. It is, of course, un- 
reasonable action ; for reason presents happiness, well- 
being, as good, and benevolence or the choice of that good 
as duty. Sinful action is opposed to reason and intelli- 
gence, and must find its motive elsewhere than among the 
facts and considerations which reason presents. Its sinful- 
ness consists in the refusal to be benevolent — the duty 
ever present to the moral agent. But unreasonable action 
must have a motive — an inducement to refuse a choice so 
excellent and praiseworthy. 

The motive to wrong action is found in the impulse 
of the desires and passions. These have their seat in the 
sensibility, and, when aroused, solicit the will Motive in 
to seek their gratification, even at the sacrifice sinful action ' 
of good and the claims of duty. The man, in the exercise 
of his freedom, has power to yield to these solicitations, 
neglecting the claim of duty, or to refuse to yield ; and in 
this choice he determines his moral character. Yielding 
to desire or passion as his controlling motive, he becomes a 
sinner. The desire terminates on some object, some rela- 
tive good which excites desire, and the attainment of which 

29 



30 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



tends to gratification. The immediate aim of the action 
to which the desire impels is the attainment of this object. 
But it cannot properly be said that the object of desire is 
the motive. It is the motive only as it awakens desire, 
and that desire itself is the immediate motive. The object 
may be really useful, a means of good, as contemplated by 
the intelligence, or it may be in the end harmful, perni- 
cious, and known to be such ; it matters not, so long as 
desire fastens upon it. The inebriate, mad with the love 
of drink, quaffs the poison, even though he knows that 
at the last " it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an 
adder." Desire is' blind to the good or evil, on the whole, 
there is in the object. It operates upon the will by its 
own blind force as an impulse, and not by considerations 
of interest or value. Thus, motives to sin come through 
the desires and passions, while motives to virtue appeal to 
us through the intelligence and reason. 

The form of the sinful action depends upon the ruling- 
desire. In general these desires change; one is satiated 
Different or ^ a ^ s > an d another takes its place, and the 
forms. action varies in form with the desire, now 

terminating on this object and now on that. The moral 
action is, however, still the same, as long as there remains 
the refusal to be governed by a regard for well-being. In 
such cases there is not that concentration of action upon 
the achievement of the end which results from benevolent 
choice. In other cases, more rare, some absorbing, pre- 
dominant passion determines the will, and produces con- 
stancy of action, as in the case of the avaricious or the 
ambitious man, with an intensity of activity which cannot 
result from varying impulses. In all these cases the sinful 
element is the same — the neglect of well-being, the refusal 
to be benevolent. Apart from this element there is no sin 



WRONG ACTION OR SIN. 



31 



in gratifying desire. Yielding to desire is the sole law of 
action with brutes ; but with them it is not sin, because 
there is no apprehended good to be sacrificed Sin not in 

. . r yielding to 

to desire. It is right for moral beings to gratify desire, 
desire, when the gratification is not in conflict with the 
claims of benevolence. The gratification of desire is to be 
accounted a good, to be held as a part of universal well- 
being, subject to the claims of duty, the decisions of 
reason. Here was the failure of our first parents. When 
they " saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was 
pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one 
wise," they took of the fruit; while duty, as indicated by 
the divine command, and their own reason as well, forbade 
the eating. This was the nature of the first sin in our 
world, and has been the characteristic of every sin from 
that day to this. Without such a command, and without 
any apprehension that the eating was improper, the gratifi- 
cation would have been indifferent, or even a duty. There 
is no sin in mere pleasure or enjoyment ; the sin is in the 
unbenevolent choice which is involved in the acceptance 
of the pleasure. 

We have seen that virtue involves obedience to reason 
and intelligence, and sin subjection to the desires and pas- 
sions. It is still true that the evil-doer em- Reason sub- 
ploys his intelligence in determining his course ; ordinate, 
but he uses it in a subordinate capacity, not to furnish him 
the principle of action, but to serve him in the pursuit of 
the objects of desire ; no longer an authoritative leader, 
but an impressed and subjugated guide. Is he avari- 
cious ? He prostitutes his intelligence to the service of his 
passion for wealth, and becomes the shrewd and successful 
money-maker. Thus, the intelligence may pander to every 
desire. Obedience to impulse in a rational being, then, 



32 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



does not lead to the same simplicity and directness of action 
as in the brute. A long train of appliances and cunning- 
schemes may intervene between the desire and the attain- 
ment of its object, the result of calculation and not of mere 
instinct. The desire itself may be held in abeyance — sup- 
pressed for the time, that its final gratification may be 
more sure and complete. One desire may be utterly 
repressed because of apprehended difficulties, and another 
enthroned in its place. The degree of intellectual culture 
will determine these matters. The savage seeks the 
objects of his desire with more directness ; he has little 
apprehension of things remote or future. He will scarcely 
scatter the seed and wait for a harvest. In the cultivated 
man the case is entirely different. The coarser passions 
are to a great extent subdued. His refined desires fasten 
on objects in the distant future; it may be even in a life 
hereafter; and his action assumes the intelligent, moder- 
ated forms which result from this wider view. Yet the 
principle of action is the same in every evil-doer; desire, 
impulse, controls ; the intelligence is subservient, and not 
dominant. 

In sinful action we find no general comprehensive end, 
which is the object of pursuit in all forms of evil-doing, 
no intelligent corresponding with the good of being in right 
end m sm. Qr Denevo i en t action. In so far as there can 
be said to be a chosen end, it changes with the changing 
desires. Properly there is no end which is pursued on its 
own account. Desire, passion, operates rather as a vis a 
tergo, an impulse moving the will by its own direct force, 
than as presenting an object of pursuit which the intelli- 
gence embraces, and which urges to pursuit by its intrinsic 
character. The reason which an evil-doer gives for his 
action when he fathoms his consciousness is, I wished to 



WRONG ACTION OR SIN. 



35 



do it. Stat pro ratione voluntas. The wish itself stands 
for a reason, and induces him to disregard the good. 

This peculiarity of sinful action has been, in general, 
overlooked by writers on morals, and various objects have 
been proposed as the end pursued in all sin. 

A very common, but superficial, view represents the 
sinner as choosing evil instead of good; and by evil is 
intended, in general, unrighteousness, or ob- Sinnota 
jective wrong, the performance of which be- choice of evlL 
comes sin, or subjective wrong. But evil-doing has in itself 
no attractions, even for the worst of men. The wrong 
course is pursued in spite of its wickedness, and not for 
the sake of it. The evil-doer would be glad to avoid 
the wickedness of his doings, if he could reap the advan- 
tages. . The world would probably be traversed in vain to 
find a man who consciously sins for the sake of sinning. If 
an apparent example could be found, it would be a case 
where perverted desire is aroused by a contemplated course 
of wrong, and the man acts in obedience to that desire. 
Such cases are sometimes alleged ; but they are not 
examples of sinning for the sake of the sin. 

It is still more common to represent selfishness as the 
fundamental sin ; probably because selfishness seems, in its 
nature, so directly opposed to benevolence, and Sin not 
benevolence is virtue. In this view selfishness selfishness, 
is defined to mean the choice of one's own good, as the 
supreme end, while benevolence is the choice of all good. 
This representation supposes two possible ultimate ends 
of action — the good of all, the choice of which is benevo- 
lence, or virtue, and our own good, the choice of which is 
selfishness, or sin. 

The evil-doer, on this view, is pursuing, as his supreme 
end, his own good. Pursuing this end, he must bring all 



34 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



his resources into service, and call upon his intelligence to 
devise ways and means to promote his own highest happi- 
To make one's ness, so far as calculation and wisdom can 
supreme. compass it. He will not sacrifice a greater 
good in the future to a present indulgence ; for this is 
opposed to his supreme end. He will not confine his 
attention to this life, if he has any evidence that there is 
another life ; because thus he would sacrifice his own inter- 
ests. If he has reason to believe that the favor of God has 
more to do with his welfare than that of any other being, 
he will be most diligent to secure that favor. If he learns 
that " honesty is the best policy," and that benevolence, 
virtue, is the truest source of satisfaction, he will give him- 
self with all his soul to an honest and virtuous life ; and if 
he does not do this, it will be because he is ignorant of the 
fact that blessedness comes with virtue. Thus, selfishness, 
in the sense of making one's own good supreme, must, in 
the end, annihilate itself. In fact, it is only from ignorance 
that it can ever exist. It is from the beginning only a 
blunder. The truly selfish man, in the sense above denned, 
a man seeking his own highest good, needs only to learn 
the good which comes from benevolence, and he becomes 
virtuous at once, because his well-being requires it. If it 
be said that he cannot become virtuous for such a reason, 
I answer, then he cannot seek his own highest good as his 
supreme end, because that end requires him to become 
benevolent ; and if he refuses he relinquishes his end — 
ceases to pursue his highest good. We have reached 
Impossibility the conclusion, then, that it is impossible for a 

of supreme re- . . 

£-ard for self. finite moral being to pursue his own highest 
good, or his own good at all, as his supreme end. In such 
a pursuit he must take his intelligence as his guide, other- 
wise he does not pursue the end proposed at all; and one 



WRONG ACTION OR SIN. 



of the first facts which reason offers to him is that benevo- 
lence is essential to happiness, and benevolence is the 
choice of all good as the supreme end. Thus he ceases to 
pursue his own good as supreme, and relinquishes his end 
in obedience to that end itself — a contradiction which is 
inevitable upon the theory that sin is the pursuit of one's 
own good. 

The doctrine is equally at fault when viewed in the 
light of the life and consciousness of the evil-doer himself. 
That he is not pursuing his own good as his sinner not 

, . ii-i -i pursuing his 

end is manliest upon the slightest considera- own good, 
tion. One of the most notorious facts of sin is that it is 
utterly opposed to the interests of the sinner. In its most 
promising and successful forms it is confessedly a sacrifice 
of greater interests to the less. The sinner, in his best 
estate, aims at some worldly advantage, and fails of the life 
to come. He seeks some temporary pleasure, and fore- 
goes the higher joys of a virtuous and benevolent life. 
Even if we confine our attention to material, worldly good, 
the lower forms of satisfaction, we find few who have suffi- 
cient self-control to surrender an insignificant present en- 
joyment to a greater future good. "A little sleep, a little 
slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep," is the cry 
of the sluggard, while " his poverty comes as a robber, and 
his want as an armed man." 

We come no nearer the truth to say that the sinner 
thinks he is pursuing his own interest. He has no such 
thought. He sees, when he gives attention i SCO nscious 
to his case, as those around him see, that he is of the fact, 
his own worst enemy — laying snares for his own feet, plot- 
ting his own ruin. You would not insult the drunkard by 
asking him if he follows his best judgment in reference to 
his own welfare. Your hope of recovering him from the 



36 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



way of death is in the fact that his own judgment con- 
demns his course as ruinous. He knows, as no other one 
can know, that the seeming good which he pursues is an 
illusion and a lie, and yet he is not persuaded to renounce 
his folly and accept substantial good. 

If it be said that the evil-doer pursues his own good 
impulsively, not rationally, it is the same as to say that he 
impulsive does not P ursue his good as his intelligence 
pursuit. apprehends it, but under the guidance of de- 

sire and passion. The real thought corresponding with the 
expression is, that he aims not at his own good at all, but 
yields to propensity, sacrificing his true interests. 

If it be said that sin is the choice of self-gratification as 
an end, the doctrine is not materially changed. The pur- 
Seif-gratifica- suit of self- gratification as an end must put the 

tion .not the •, 

end. agent upon a careful course of inquiry as to 

the joys within his reach, or that he may hope to attain. 
Contemplated in this view, the only view in which self- 
gratification can be pursued as an end, it is the same as the 
pursuit of one's own happiness. The sinner sacrifices his 
own gratification, even as he apprehends it himself, to his 
appetites and passions. No one has ever doubted that a 
well-regulated life brings with it more gratification, even 
of the bodily appetites, than a course of unrestrained pas- 
sion; yet on every side we find men obliterating, by un- 
wise indulgence, the very susceptibility of enjoyment. If 
they pursued self- gratification as an end, they would act 
more wisely. It is as difficult to persuade men to be con- 
siderate and just toward themselves, as toward God or their 
fellow-men. 

The only sense in which the sinner lives for himself is 
that he regards not his rational self, but his psychical 
self, the animal, or rather sentient, nature, made up of the 



WRONG ACTION OR SIN. 



37 



desires and passions. Here he finds his motives to action, 
and thus lives a life of impulse and not of reason. The 
name by which Paul designates this state is Carnal . 
not selfishness, but camal-niindedness — caring rnmdedness. 
for the flesh, a term which expresses with philosophic 
accuracy the nature of the action. By the term flesh he 
means not merely the bodily appetites, but the aggregate 
of the desires and passions, of which the bodily appetites 
are the most conspicuous. 

Let it not be forgotten that the sin is not in the desires 
or passions themselves, nor even in their gratification, but 
in the constant refusal to accept the good as No sin in 
the aim of life. The desires and passions are desires, 
the motives which induce this refusal. The desires and 
passions are a part of our constitution, given us by the 
Creator, but given to be controlled and not to control. We 
are rational beings, and the truths' and realities in view of 
which we ought to act are presented by the reason. 

If it be asked, Why are these impulses given us, since 
they furnish temptation to sin and are the source of all evil ? 
it may be said that they are the condition or De sires, why 
channel of all good as well as evil. Without glven ' 
them we should be as valueless as dead matter ; our being 
would be nothing in itself, and useful only as there were 
other beings endowed with desires who could use us. It 
is through the sentient side of our nature that all precious 
things exist to us, and the broader, and deeper, and more 
various these susceptibilities and wants, the higher we 
stand in the scale of being. If the desires be eradicated 
as the occasion of sin, the possibility of virtue ceases at the 
same time. It is only required that we set the limit to 
our gratifications which duty enjoins, sacrificing no good 
to impulse or desire. 



CHAPTER IV. 



OF PARTICULAR VIRTUES. 

BENEVOLENCE, or the willing of well-being, lies at the 
foundation of all right moral character, and constitutes it. 
Benevolence It animates and characterizes all right moral 

the founda- , - . 

tion. acts. The one fundamental virtue, found m 

all virtuous character, is voluntary regard for the good of 
being. Out of this controlling principle spring particular 
right acts, and all the virtues and graces of character. 
The moral goodness or praiseworthiness lies in that control- 
ling choice. While that choice exists, the character is true, 
worthy of approbation ; and the Tightness and worthiness 
are as constant as the governing choice. The forms in 
which it may reveal itself depend upon the particular cir- 
cumstances in which the agent may be placed, and upon 
his individual constitution or type of culture. These par- 
ticular manifestations of benevolence are called virtuous 
acts. The various states of mind resulting from benevo- 
lence, as modified 1 by and blended with the different nat- 
Particuiar 11 ra ^ affections, take corresponding names, and 
virtues. constitute the particular virtues. Of this nat- 

ure are such exercises as love, gratitude, justice, mercy, 
self-denial, veracity, humility, faith, obedience, and others 
like them. These are all manifestations of benevolence, 
and all their moral excellence or praiseworthiness is found 
in the benevolent choice which underlies them. A par- 
ticular right act is an exhibition of benevolence, and fur- 

38 



OF PARTICULAR VIRTUES. 



39 



nishes occasion for approval of the agent ; but we are not 
to suppose that his moral goodness is all concentrated in 
these special acts. These are but outcrop- Goodness not 

. , . , limited to the 

pings of the principle of benevolence, which act. 
constitutes the right character. If there had been no op- 
portunity for the act, the agent might have been just as 
virtuous and praiseworthy. The virtue is as constant as 
the benevolent choice. We praise the patriot soldier who 
stands bravely in battle ; the same patriotism was in him 
before the battle, and is in another who has no such occa- 
sion for its exhibition. Virtuous character lies back of par- 
ticular virtuous acts. It is the root of the tree, of which 
the particular developments are the foliage, and flower, 
and fruit. The particular virtues have different names, 
not because they differ from each other in the virtuous 
element involved, but because this element is blended with 
others which make them differ in consciousness, and in 
outward form. 

Love is a term employed to designate a particular virtue. 
It is also used to express the common element of all the 
virtues, and in this sense it is synonymous with Love as a 
benevolence. This is the use of the term in virtue, 
the Scriptures, where it is represented as the fulfilling, or 
content, of the law — all that the law requires toward God 
and toward men, the good and the bad. As a particular 
virtue, love is benevolence blended with and working 
through the natural affection which bears the same name. 
In the different relations the modifying affection varies, 
and the love is called parental, filial, or social. The natural 
affection may exist without the benevolence to control and 
regulate it. It is still called love, but it is no longer virtue. 
Benevolent affection exercised toward the good is attended 
with approbation of the character of the object, and hence 



40 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



is called love of complacency. This is the form which love 
takes when exercised toward God, because the contem- 
Loveof plation of God's character affords satisfaction, 

complacency. The percept i on 0 f t h e worthiness is intellectual, 
the resulting satisfaction is emotional ; the benevolence is 
still the voluntary and virtuous element. The complacency 
without the benevolence is not virtuous. Love to enemies 
and to the wicked is benevolence accompanied by dis- 
approbation of the character, or displacency. There may 
be less of enjoyment in the immediate exercise, but it is 
still as high a manifestation of virtue as any other. In all 
its varieties, love is virtuous in so far as it is benevolent, 
and no further. 

Gratitude admits of a similar analysis. As a virtue it is 
benevolence toward a benefactor. We have also the per- 
Gratitude as ception of a benefit received, pleasure or satis- 
a virtue. faction in view of it, and an impulse to requite 
the benefit. The emotional and impulsive action, with- 
out the benevolence, is still called gratitude, but it is 
not virtuous. It is a common experience of the good and 
the bad. 

Justice as a virtue is but another name for benevolence 
dealing with the interests and deserts of men. There is 
an impulse to treat every interest according to 

Justice. . i-i-i 

its value, and every person according to nis de- 
serts, and there is satisfaction in witnessing such a result. 
This characteristic of our nature is often called the princi- 
ple of justice ; but it becomes the virtue of justice when 
benevolence enters in to regulate and limit it. What is 
called justice becomes sin when it goes beyond the limits 
which benevolence appoints. To secure to a moral being 
his deserts is a virtuous act when benevolence requires it ; 
it is a sinful act when a proper regard for all good forbids. 



OF PARTICULAR VIRTUES. 



41 



To pardon a sinner is duty when the common good per- 
mits. The final appeal is to this standard, and justice 
becomes virtue by being benevolence. The only just man 
is the man who regards all well-being for its value and 
according to its value. 

It is common with writers on morals to represent justice 
as an independent virtue, distinct from, and even opposed 
to, benevolence; yet no definition of justice Not an 

. i.ii -1 independent 

as a virtue can be given which does not imply virtue, 
benevolence, and no rule of action in accordance with jus- 
tice can be given which does not find its limitations in 
benevolence. Dugald Stewart, after strenuously rejecting 
the idea that benevolence is the substance of all virtue, 
defines justice as " that disposition which leads us, in cases 
where our own temper, or passions, or interests are con- 
cerned, to determine and to act without being biased by 
partial considerations." What is this but a definition of 
benevolence — a disposition to treat every good j ust i ce and 
and every interest according to its value ? Even benevol ence. 
the popular definition of justice, as " the virtue which con- 
sists in giving to every one what is his due," involves the 
same limitations. What is his due is determined, not by 
any abstract rule of desert, but by a careful comparison 
and adjustment of interests according to their value. Jus- 
tice, then, is not an independent virtue, but is an exercise 
of benevolence in certain relations and with certain modi- 
fying affections. The term justice often has an objective 
sense, indicating not the virtue, nor any disposition what- 
ever, but what is outwardly right between man and man ; 
and this outward justice finds its authority and its limita- 
tions in the common good. We have a perception of the 
deserts of men, and, in an inexact way, often speak of these 
as the ground and measure of justice in their case. It is 



42 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



true that these deserts are significant facts, and are to be 
made account of in the estimate of what the common good 
requires or permits, but they are not the standard of justice. 
It is not always unjust to treat men better than they de- 
serve, or even worse at times. Justice as a mere sentiment 
is blind to everything but desert; justice as a virtue has 
an eye for every interest. 

Mercy is compassion exercised toward the undeserving, 
limited by regard for the general good. It is benevolence 
saving offenders from deserved retribution ; 

Mercy. 

without the limitation of benevolence it is 
culpable weakness, not a virtue. We naturally pity the 
miserable ; when guilt is combined with the misery, our 
pity becomes mercy — a mere sentiment, emotional and im- 
pulsive ; when benevolence permeates, and limits, and con- 
trols the sentiment, it is the virtue of mercy. Mercy is a 
necessary product of benevolence ; for benevolence is the 
willing of good to all, to the good and the bad alike — not 
the actual effort to do good to all, but a readiness, a dis- 
position to it, an actual effort to secure it when the gen- 
eral good will permit. As virtues, mercy and justice can 
Mercy and never be antagonistic, because they have their 

justice not . ..... 

opposed. ground in the common principle of benevo- 
lence ; as sentiments or impulses, the one may counteract 
or exclude the other. To settle their limits and applica- 
tions in outward life is just as difficult as to determine what 
benevolence requires, and no more so. This is the only 
test — the final appeal. 

Self-denial is benevolence holding in subjection the 
desires and passions, and putting personal interest in its 
proper place — a readiness to forego self-indul- 

Self-denial. , , . T , 

gence at the bidding of benevolence. In real- 
ity, it is not the sacrifice of any interest of our own. It 



OF PARTICULAR VIRTUES. 



43 



is the only way in which real interests can be secured. 
Moral beings will always prove the truth of the gospel 
paradox : He that saveth his life shall lose it, and he that 
loseth it shall save it. The denial of one desire at the 
bidding of another is not self-denial. It may involve all 
the pain, or even more, but it does not bring the satisfac- 
tion of virtuous self-denial. 

Veracity is benevolence exercised in communicating im- 
pressions of facts to our fellow-men. Truthfulness in 
communication, from any other than a benevo- 

. . , r t Veracity. 

lent motive, is not the virtue 01 veracity. It 
may be sentimental, impulsive, veracity, resulting from 
the instinctive admiration of truthfulness existing in every 
mind. To speak the truth for the sake of the truth, if 
there be any thought corresponding with the expression, 
must be to yield to this sentiment as an impulse. Truth 
in itself is not an ultimate good. The final value is in 
moral beings, whom it serves. 

Humility is not a depreciative judgment of ourselves, 
nor a feeling of depression in view of any personal disad- 
vantages ; it is benevolence exercised in con- 
ceding precedence to others, and in accepting 
cheerfully the place which falls to us. The sentiment of 
humility, as distinguished from the virtue, is a trait of 
character natural to some, having its basis in the emotional 
constitution. 

Faith is a benevolent attitude of mind accepting the 
evidence of facts, and bestowing confidence upon the 
persons to whom it is due. The intellectual 

I.'-.., , Faith. 

element is a conviction 01 the truth to be 
accepted, and of the fidelity of the persons who are the 
objects of faith. The moral element is the benevolent atti- 
tude of mind which disposes to the acceptance of this evi- 



44 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



dence, and to the treatment of the truth as true, and of 
the person as trustworthy. The emotional element is the 
peace and rest and satisfaction which flow from or follow 
this acceptance of evidence and bestowment of confidence. 
Each of these distinct exercises is sometimes called faith, 
especially the intellectual and emotional ; but the virtuous- 
ness of faith lies in the right voluntary state which yields to 
evidence, and accepts a well-founded claim to confidence. 
No degree of mere conviction is virtuous faith, nor of emo- 
tion in view of the conviction. " The devils believe and 
tremble." The excellence of faith is not so much in a 
right belief, as in the state of mind which leads to right 
belief. That state of mind is benevolence. The idea is 
somewhat prevalent that reason and faith are opposed to 
each other, and that we leave reason when we take faith as 
our principle. Faith depends on reason, in the sense that 
we can accept as true only what comes with evidence ad- 
dressed to reason. We have faith in God, because we have 
reason to believe him trustworthy ; and from him we ac- 
cept revelations beyond, but not opposed to, reason. Faith 
without evidence is presumption, not faith. 

Obedience is a benevolent submission to authority. 
Submission for any other reason, for safety or from a sense 
of the power or superiority of the ruler, is not 

Obedience. . ... . . 

a virtue. These considerations are often in- 
volved in virtuous obedience, and are not inconsistent with 
it. They are involved, too, in the cowardly submission of 
one whose heart is opposed to the authority, and destitute 
of any trace of loyalty or duty. If it be said that submis- 
sion because it is right is obedience, the definition is cor- 
rect, but the analysis is incomplete. What is right is what 
is obligatory ; and what is obligatory is determined by the 
interests involved — the universal well-being. Let it ap- 



OF PARTICULAR VIRTUES. 



"45 



pear that these interests are not promoted by submission, 
and all sense of obligation is lost. Thus the virtuous ele- 
ment of obedience is benevolence. 

All virtuous exercises admit of a similar analysis. 
Wherever benevolence is found, there is virtue, praise- 
worthiness, the fulfillment of obligation ; where This analysis 

. sustained by 

this is wanting, there may be amiable senti- Scripture, 
ment and comely outward action, but there is no virtue. 
This view accords so fully with the doctrine of the Script- 
ures that it is remarkable that any other has had sway 
among Christian moralists. The doctrine is so distinctly 
announced that a passing reference will suffice. The Sav- 
iour distinctly presents love to God and man as the sole 
requirement of the law. There can be no doubt as to the 
nature of this love when we remember that he represents 
it as due to God and to man, to the evil as to the good, to 
enemies as to friends. The love which is due to all beings, 
irrespective of character and relations, can only be benevo- 
lence, the willing of good to all. Paul, in announcing that 
love is the fulfilling of the law, enumerates the leading 
precepts of the decalogue, and lest something should be 
omitted, he adds, " And if there be any other command- 
ment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, 
'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself';" and in a 
chapter of marvelous beauty and power, he proclaims the 
emptiness of all high-sounding virtues and showy deeds 
without charity, love, benevolence. If any doctrine is 
clearly taught in Scripture, it would seem to be that 
benevolence is the sum of duty. 

But let it be remembered that the love which fulfills the 
law is an active voluntary state, and not a mere emotion. 
It may coexist with all the emotions that are natural to 
man, and prompt to all the deeds promotive of well-being. 



4 6 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



It is not mere tender-heartedness, good-nature, kindly 
feeling, a weak disposition to make everybody comfort - 
Benevolence able. Benevolence is alive to every interest, 

not mere 

emotion. discriminating, earnest, courageous. It is gen- 
tle or stern, forbearing or indignant, as the occasion may 
require. Those writers, as Butler, Stewart, Cousin, McCosh, 
and others, who discard the doctrine that benevolence is 
the whole of virtue, seem to treat it as emotional rather 
Misapprehen- than intelligent and voluntary. Says Archibald 

sions of be- 
nevolence. Alexander: "If a judge should feel a strong 

benevolence toward all criminals, so as to avoid inflicting 
on them the penalty of the wholesome laws of the country, 
we should judge it w r icked." Hence he concludes not 
only that benevolence is not the whole of virtue, but that 
it is not always virtuous. It is not necessary to say that 
the benevolence of which he speaks is a mere sentiment, 
and is not embraced in the definition of benevolence which 
we have given. It is no more benevolence than wrath or 
jealousy, or the other malignant passions. The benevolent 
man cannot intentionally sacrifice the good of the commu- 
nity to his reluctance to inflict pain on a criminal. Such 
action is in direct conflict with his principle — regard to the 
good of all on account of its value. 

The doctrine of the old philosophers, that he that has 
one virtue has all the virtues, proves true in a very 
The ancient important sense. Every genuine virtue has 
doctrine. benevolence as its foundation ; and benevo- 
lence .is the germ and root of all the virtues. In time, with 
favoring circumstances and culture, they must appear. The 
genuine virtues are not independent of each other. They 
are all special exhibitions of benevolence, -and each in a 
sense implies the other ; not in its outward form, but in its 
principle and root. We do not find the benevolent all 



OF PARTICULAR VIRTUES. 



47 



alike in their exhibitions of character. They are alike in 
their principle of action, but the outward life varies with 
the individual constitution, with varying light and circum- 
stances. Benevolence is often fettered by a poor judg- 
ment and a very imperfect constitution, and its exhibitions 
become greatly distorted by the crude media through 
which they must struggle. 



CHAPTER V. 



OF PARTICULAR VICES — NATURAL OR IMPULSIVE 
GOODNESS. 

In so far as sin presents unity of character, it lies in the 
refusal to regard the well-being of all, and give it its 
proper place. This constitutes the wickedness 

Unity of sin. . . . . . . 

of all sinful action ; and m this respect it is the 
contradictory of benevolence. Where this failure to regard 
well-being exists, there is sin — the violation of obligation, 
whatever may be the outward action. 

The evil-doing is as continuous as this attitude of will, 
and particular vicious acts are but the outcroppings of 
its conti- the- sinful character. The particular exhibition 
nuity " gives occasion for our disapproval and con- 

demnation ; and it is not unnatural to direct our attention 
to these acts as involving all that is blameworthy in the 
character. But the vicious attitude of will existed before 
that action, and may remain afterwards. Occasion may 
be wanting for the exhibition of the vicious principle, the 
persistent voluntary state of refusal to regard well-being; 
yet the man is sinful, blameworthy, and will surely act 
unrighteously, when the time for action comes. 

The outward wrong action takes its particular name and 
character from the desire which predominates, and which 
Particular prompts to the action, or from the particular 
vlces> relations in which the act is performed, or from 

the outward form of the action. In such a principle and 
motive originate all the vices which deform character and 



OF PARTICULAR VICES. 



49 



injure society, as sensuality, ambition, avarice, pride, self- 
ishness, envy, and the like, different in the desire which 
controls, and in the outward form of the action, but alike 
in the element of blameworthiness, the exclusion of benev- 
olence. 

Sensuality is a subjection of the will to the bodily ap- 
petites. These solicit to gratification, and furnish the mo- 
tive to loathsome vices which so degrade men. 

. Sensuality. 

The wrong is not m the appetites ; they belong 
to our constitution, implanted by the Creator. They are 
as innocent as our most elevated tastes and susceptibilities, 
and perhaps are even more necessary and useful. Their 
gratification is not a sin, as long as no good is sacrificed. 
The sin consists in giving these the rein, subjecting the will 
to their control, instead of holding it subservient to well- 
being. 

Ambition results from the surrender of the will to the 
desire of power, of control of men. The desire is doubtless 
constitutional, belongs to us by creation, and 

. Ambition. 

has its purpose to serve ; but to allow the de- 
sire to control and turn us from the path of duty, of benev- 
olence, is the sin of ambition. We often hear of a laudable 
ambition. It must consist in the purpose to secure posi- 
tion and power for the furtherance of worthy ends. 

Avarice results from the love of wealth as the predomi- 
nant desire. The desire exists in all men, but in the avari- 
cious man it becomes the controlling motive. 
When the desire terminates directly on the 
wealth, and finds its satisfaction in the mere possession, the 
man is a miser. If he contemplates the enjoyment which 
the wealth may purchase, he is still avaricious ; but the 
avarice is combined with another passion, as the love of 
pleasure, or distinction, or independence. Properly con- 



50 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



trolled and directed, the desire of wealth is a wholesome 
impulse. 

Pride is subjection of the will to the desire of elevation 
or distinction, and implies dissatisfaction in occupying one's 
Pride and proper place, an unwillingness to be regarded 
vamty. according to one's worth. If the passion be 

attended, as it often is, by an overestimate of one's accom- 
plishments or advantages, it takes the form of vanity. If 
it exist in connection with a low estimate of one's self, it 
becomes mortified pride ; it is still not humility. We often 
hear that a degree of pride is necessary to a well-balanced 
character ; of course a proper self-respect must be intended. 

Selfishness, as a special vice, is subjection of the will 
to the desire of good, involving an overestimate of one's 
own importance and a disregard of the equal 

Selfishness. ■ it 

rights of others. When good is to be dis- 
tributed, benevolence asks only its proper share. Selfish- 
ness craves more, is greedy of good, and careless of others. 
This is the vice in its popular sense. Theological writers 
often use the term as expressing the opposite of benevo- 
lence, or the essence of all sin, an unfortunate use of the 
word, as we have seen, and implying a state of facts which 
does not exist. 

Thus we may pass over the entire catalogue of the de- 
sires and find a form of sin corresponding with each. The 
The desire sm * as we nave seen, does not lie in the desire, 
not sin ' nor in its gratification, but in the voluntary 

refusal to regard the good, under the impulse of the desire 
or passion. Even if the desire be artificial, created by 
self-indulgence and sin, as the love of strong drink, still the 
sin is not in the desire, but in allowing it sway. The 
highest forms of virtuous action are sometimes exhibited 
in connection with aggravated or perverted passions. To 



NATURAL OR IMPULSIVE GOODNESS. 5 I 



nurse or foster a passion, even without indulgence of it in 
outward form, implies sin, a latent spirit of self-indulgence. 

The so-called malevolent impulses, in so far as they 
are merely emotional, come under the same principle as 
the amiable ones. Wrath, indignation, resent- Malevolent 
ment, are not sinful in themselves. They have impulses, 
their place in human nature — probably in every moral 
nature — and imply sin only as they control the action and 
determine the will to the disregard of duty. Like all the 
impulses, they are to be controlled. They present, like the 
desires, temptations to sin, but temptation is not sin. 

We have considered the two forms of moral action, be- 
nevolence and its opposite, and have seen that all moral 
goodness, virtue, lies in benevolence, and all Only two 
sin in the refusal to be benevolent. No third possible, 
attitude, no neutral position, is possible to a moral being. 
To regard well-being, and not to regard it, are the only 
conceivable positions ; and not to regard well-being is, in 
a moral being, to refuse to regard it. 

But there is much moral action, or action of moral be- 
ings, that is proper, amiable, and useful too, which it is some- 
times difficult to classify. It has the aspect of Apparent 
virtuous action, but lacks the vital element. goodness. 
The action may lie entirely out of the range of morality, in 
the necessary movements of our nature, or it may be merely 
impulsive. 

We find in all men right and proper judgments on moral 
questions, a clear discernment, and more or less accurate 
expression of propriety and duty. But these Right 
judgments are wholly intellectual, not at our judgments, 
control, and therefore have no moral character. A percep- 
tion of the first principles of morality is essential to moral 
agency ; it is provided for in our constitution, and is as 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



inevitable as the perception of the axioms of mathematics. 
This element in our nature is a good, elevates us in the 
scale of being, but does not make us virtuous. 

Closely allied to this is the moral approbation of right- 
doing, of right character, of God, and of good men, and 
Moral approv- disapprobation of wrong in act and character. 

al and disap- . . ... 

provai. This exercise is constitutional, not voluntary. 

To approve and admire virtue is not to practice it, and to 
condemn the wrong is not to abstain from it. 

" Meliora video proboque, deteriora sequor." 

" I see the right, and I approve it too, 
Condemn the wrong, and still the wrong pursue." 

However low a moral being may sink, there must remain, 
while moral agency survives, the approbation of virtue and 
the disapprobation of vice. An appeal to a moral being in 
behalf of righteousness always finds a response in the judg- 
ment, if not in the will. But that response is not virtue, it 
is the involuntary testimony of his nature in favor of virtue. 

In connection with these judgments in favor of the right 
and against the wrong, there arises an aspiration, an im- 
Aspiration pulse, more or less distinct, toward the attain- 
for virtue. ment of right character, a desire for it as the 
highest excellence, as the essential condition of one's own 
approbation and that of others. Not only virtue in its 
general form, but each of the particular virtues, and every 
virtuous act, excites admiration and desire, an impulse 
called by Lord Karnes the sympathetic emotion of virtue, 
which prompts to the attainment of a like character. But 
to desire to be virtuous is not to be so. A sinful life may 
repress and obscure this desire, but probably never oblit- 
erates it. 



NATURAL OR IMPULSIVE GOODNESS. 



53 



There are, again, in every human being, kindly affections 
and sentiments, the social sympathies belonging to human 
nature, which afford a foundation for the vari- Kindly 
ous relations of life, and make society pleasant affections, 
and desirable. There are natural gifts and graces which 
adorn the character, beautiful and useful, but no more virt- 
uous than the beauties of a gem or a flower. There are 
similar instincts even in animals of a lower order. A virt- 
uous life best improves and displays these natural gifts, 
and sin may dwarf and perhaps obliterate some of them, 
while others are vigorous even in connection with the 
grossest degradation. They make our nature desirable, 
but do not constitute it virtuous. 

In the contemplation of God, of his greatness and good- 
ness, pious and devotional feelings arise — awe, reverence, 
admiration, gratitude, an instinctive tribute of Devotional 
our nature to its author. These natural sen- sentiments, 
timents of piety constitute man a religious being, not a 
virtuous being — religious in the sense that provision is 
made in his nature for worship, devotion. Even without 
a right heart, he feels the propriety, and in some sense the 
need, of worship. These sentiments are traces of God's 
handiwork, and indicate the style of life which is appropri- 
ate to man. Vitalized and sustained by genuine goodness, 
they characterize the truly pious man, and in such circum- 
stances are best illustrated ; but they exist in every culti- 
vated mind, even without virtue, and are not wholly want- 
ing in the rudest savage. The sentiment of devotion is 
nearly related to the poetic in our constitution, and hence 
has become in modern times an important element, even in 
our lighter literature. Some of our sacred lyrics, beautiful 
expressions of pious feeling, have been furnished by writers 
who can scarcely be supposed to have an experience of 



54 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



devotion, except in its poetic and sentimental forms. Such 
feelings are beautiful and worthy of cultivation, but they 
are not necessarily virtuous exercises. 

Thus every recognized virtue finds in human nature a 
corresponding desire or impulse, and from these, as from 
impulsive other impulses, there results impulsive action 
vxrtues. j n ^ direction of all these virtues, producing 

natural loveliness; many beautiful acts and graces of char- 
acter, all the social virtues in their external emotional forms. 
As examples of these we have generosity springing from 
a desire to gratify others ; charity, works of beneficence, 
from the impulse of pity for the suffering, as in the case of 
Goldsmith, who would give his coat to a beggar in the 
street; philanthropy, as of Lord Byron in his sentimental 
devotion to the interests of Greece ; patriotism, which has 
led multitudes to count it sweet to die for their country ; 
friendship involving personal affection, and furnishing 
beautiful exhibitions of unselfishness, and, most striking of 
all in the self-sacrifice involved, parental affection, maternal 
love, sometimes called the holiest of human exercises ; but 
if it be merely instinctive or impulsive, it is no holier 
than the sunlight or the shower. Even in the vile and 
degraded it is sometimes exhibited as an intense passion. 
The virtuous element of benevolence, flowing through 
this channel of maternal love, beautifies it and gives con- 
sistency and wisdom. Without this element parental 
affection often shows its weakness by thwarting what 
would seem to be its own proper ends. Of the same 
general character is the integrity which flows from the 
admiration of justice, or from the maxim that honesty is 
the best policy ; also the obtrusive and pretentious virtues 
which spring from a sense of honor, as it is called — a 
principle too capricious to be depended on, and deter- 



NATURAL OR IMPULSIVE GOODNESS. 



55 



mined in general by what is considered respectable in a 
particular circle. 

Thus for every genuine virtue there is a corresponding 
factitious virtue, involving the external form and some of the 
emotions of the genuine, but lacking in the ele- Re i a tion to 
ment of benevolence, which alone gives virtue true virtue, 
to action. It is not, in general, true that these virtues are 
counterfeited — assumed intentionally for- the accomplish- 
ment of an end, as the attainment of respectability, or the 
advancement of worldly interest in other forms. They are 
superficial, impulsive, but not hypocritical. The man acts 
as he feels, and because of his feeling ; and when his feel- 
ing changes, the action changes. Here lies the deficiency. 
The true principle and reason of action is higher than feel- 
ing. The feeling enriches and beautifies the action, but 
should not govern it. 

There is much apparent goodness that is imitative — a 
reflection of what is genuine ; but even here the goodness 
is not affected — put on merely as a fashion; imitative 
the emotions which produce the action are goodness, 
communicated — propagated by natural sympathy, and thus 
some particular form of goodness becomes contagious. 
Religious or philanthropic sentiments pervade a commu- 
nity, and the corresponding virtues become epidemic. The 
affection is not a dangerous one, but genuine goodness is 
not so easily propagated. The tide of feeling changes, and 
you look in vain for the luxuriant harvest of good which 
was promised. " It has no root in itself, and so endureth 
but for a time." In other cases the feeling is permanent, 
grounded in the constitution, and the impulsive action is 
equally permanent. 

These instinctive virtues are seen to lack genuineness 
in the fact that they are often partial, have arbitrary limi- 



56 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



tations, such as are imposed by feeling, not reason. They 
often coexist with the clearest failures in morality, in other 
impulsive directions. A pirate may exhibit a chivalrous 
virtue partial. honor am ong his associates, may even be a 
tender father and a faithful friend ; yet his life is a war 
upon mankind. Byron encountered danger, and met death, 
in his romantic interest for Greece; yet his private life 
was too deeply stained with vice to allow even a hope 
that his virtues were real. He must be a very reckless 
and abandoned man who has not some form of goodness 
to mitigate the sense of ill- desert. The man who has cast 
off all thought of duty or loyalty to God comforts himself 
upon his fidelity to man ; yet genuine duty admits no such 
limitations. 

A change of circumstances, or of locality and surround- 
ings, sometimes proves fatal to the impulsive virtues. It 
Not trans- nas l° n g been a proverb that t( Englishmen 
portable. going to India leave their religion at the 
Cape " ; and it was often remarked, in former years, that 
New England morality, emigrating to the southwest, rarely 
survived the passage of Vicksburg. True virtue will bear 
transportation. By such weaknesses and failures the facti- 
tious virtues betray themselves. 

But is this natural, impulsive goodness sinful? Are not 
persons better for the possession of these qualities? The 
proper outward action, whatever the motive, 

Is it sinful ? f . . . 

is not sinful, nor is the emotion sinlul which 
prompts and attends the action; but the heart which 
knows no higher motive than feeling is destitute of genuine 
goodness, and the life which is governed by impulse, rather 
than by the principle of benevolence, is a sinful life. The 
man would be worse if divested of these natural graces of 
character — less hopeful in himself, more injurious to society. 



NATURAL OR IMPULSIVE GOODNESS. 



3 7 



Impulsive goodness is a real good, of use in the world. It 
helps to make up the general public sentiment, which in 
Christian countries favors virtue. The genuine goodness, 
even of a few, operates beyond these few, upon the feelings 
and acts of the community, molding the sentiment and 
the outward life, and finally, in many cases, establishing 
itself in the heart. Thus virtue finds in the feelings and 
sympathies of men, as well as in their convictions, a sup- 
port which evil must always lack. Vice, as such, is always 
repulsive, and finds no approving sympathy in the human 
soul. 



CHAPTER VI. 



RELATED FACTS AND INFERENCES. 

The law of benevolence is the universal law. In the 
nature of the case it extends to all moral beings and covers 
universality a ^ tne i r mora l action. The apprehension of 
of the law. good and the power of choice are the sole 
conditions of obligation. Obligation, then, is as widespread 
and as permanent as moral existence — the obligation of 
benevolence ; and all moral goodness, all that is praise- 
worthy in character, consists in meeting obligation, in being- 
benevolent. Where there is no obligation, there can be 
no goodness. The law of benevolence extends to God as 
well as to his creatures, and he is good because he meets 
the obligation. " God is love," because his entire character 
is conformed to the requirements of benevolence. This is 
the holiness of God as a moral attribute ; of holiness in 
essence or being, as distinguished from holiness in char- 
acter, we can have no conception. There is no thought 
answering to the words. 

Works of supererogation are impossible to a moral being 
— the performance of more than duty. Obligation keeps 
superero- pace with ability. " To him that knoweth to 

gation impos- 

S1 bie. do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. 

There can be no meritorious works that are not obligatory. 
No being, divine or human, can ever do more than duty, 
because he can never transcend ability. The obligation of 
each moment is measured by the ability of each moment ; 

58 



RELATED FACTS AND INFERENCES. 



59 



hence the failure at one point can never be canceled by 
the surplus goodness at another. Nor has one moral being 
an excess of virtue, to meet the deficiencies of another. 

Moral acts and moral character are personal — inseparable 
from the being to whom they originally pertain. Each 
moral being is responsible for his own char- Morality 
acter, and that responsibility can in no manner personal, 
be transferred to another. Each man is praiseworthy for 
his good deeds, and blameworthy for his bad deeds. The 
good deeds may have been induced in him by the influence 
of another ; but they are still his deeds, and he is praise- 
worthy on account of them. So the bad deeds may be 
occasioned by temptations proceeding from another, but 
the blameworthiness attends the deeds. The promoter of 
virtue in the one case, and the tempter in the other, have 
their own responsibilities. Each moral agent is the re- 
sponsible cause of his own deeds and character, both good 
and bad, whatever the occasion of the deeds may have 
been. 

Hence moral character can never be transferred. It be- 
longs inevitably to the subject of it, and must arise, in 
every case, from free voluntary action. Guilt, Character not 
in the sense of ill-desert, cannot be communi- transferable - 
cated from one to another by imputation, or by natural 
generation, as from parent to child, or by any device what- 
ever. It must come into existence by the free action of its 
subject. Infirmities of constitution, tendencies to wrong 
action, temptations, may be transmitted ; and these may 
lead to a reproduction of sin in the child, like that which 
existed in the parent. Hence, in a loose and popular sense 
the sin is said to be transmitted ; or one may be involved 
in the consequences of another's acts and thus be said to 
share his sin ; but in strict thought and expression, sin be- 



6o 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



longs only to the agent who commits it, and cannot be 
transferred. The same principle applies equally to virtue. 

The ambiguity of the word character sometimes leads 
to confusion of thought and expression. In the most gen- 
Character, eral sense, character embraces all that belongs 
senses. to the soul — its combination of powers, and 

susceptibilities, and tendencies, as well as the result of these 
in moral condition and action. In this sense, as pertaining 
to constitution or nature, character is doubtless transmitted 
from parent to child. In a stricter sense character is limited 
to the moral state or action, and the limitation is usually 
expressed by the epithet moral. But the term moral char- 
acter has a threefold use : first, to indicate the present 
momentary moral state, the immediate condition of the 
soul in respect to virtue and sin ; secondly, with a retro- 
spective view involving the element of time, to express the 
aggregate of moral action — the accumulated merit or de- 
merit of all the moral life ; and thirdly, to express the 
prevailing or predominant moral condition, determined by 
the average of moral action during a period of time suffi- 
cient to afford an indication. Moral character in all these 
senses is strictly personal and intransmissible. 

The seat of moral depravity is in the will — moral 
depravity being sin. The sin consists in the voluntary 
Seat of refusal to live for general well-being. The 

depravity. intellect and sensibility cannot be morally de- 
praved ; there is no sin in them. They may be diseased 
and perverted, and these corruptions may become occasions 
of sin. But in all moral beings, depraved or undepraved, 
the sensibility must, from its very nature, operate as an 
impulse to self-indulgence. To resist this impulse, from a 
regard to well-being, is virtue ; to yield to it and neglect 
the good is sin. The idea of a sensibility in harmony with 



RELATED EACTS AND INFERENCES. 



01 



virtue, so that to follow its impulses will be virtuous action, 
involves a contradiction. To follow an impulse of the feel- 
ing because we judge it, under the circumstances, our best 
guide, is not to be governed by feeling. 

Total moral depravity ought to mean the entire absence, 
or refusal, of the choice of good on its own account — the 
entire commitment of the will to the desires Total 
and passions, as the motive of action. In this depravity, 
sense only is total depravity predicable of any moral being. 
All this is compatible with much that is correct in the 
moral judgment, and much that is pleasant and amiable in 
emotion and action. It is true that sin tends to pervert 
the nature, to obscure the judgment, and to corrupt the 
desires ; but until moral agency is utterly subverted, and 
the man ceases to be accountable, he can judge correctly 
of his own duty and that of others, he approves virtue and 
condemns sin. 

The moral change required in every sinner is to cease to 
do evil and learn to do well ; a change from subjection to 
desire and impulse, to the choice of good for change 
its own sake, a change not in nature, but in required, 
moral character and action. This is the point in which the 
sinner is wrong, and by such a change only can he become 
right. Other changes may be desirable; this is obliga- 
tory. It is obligatory because it is voluntary, hence, al- 
ways possible. The change must involve the sinner's own 
action, for the sin is his, and the virtue is his. Every 
moral agent has in his own thought considerations which 
ought to induce the change ; but such are the fascinations 
of sin, that men do not surrender it without powerful in- 
fluence from without, persuading, not compelling. It is 
not power, but persuasion, that is brought to bear. In no 
other manner can Omnipotence itself secure right moral 



62 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



action. Neither virtue nor sin can be imposed by any 
extraneous force, however great. A change in moral char- 
acter is not the work of power, but of motive. 

Intensity of emotion in connection with any moral state 
or act, is not the test of its character, or the measure of its 
Emotion and desert. The emotion varies with varying cir- 
character. cumstances, with the object of immediate at- 
tention ; the moral state is as constant as the attitude of 
the will. The emotion is sometimes an indication of the 
moral state, more or less reliable. A man's fidelity to his 
family is not determined at any time by the intensity of 
his emotional affection. He may be so absorbed with his 
duty, that the thought which excites emotion may be im- 
possible to him ; and when the emotion arises, it may be, 
in some circumstances, not a help to his duty, but a hin- 
drance — a temptation to drop the duty and give himself 
to the enjoyment of the society of his family. The emo- 
tional affection has an important office, and constitutes 
much of the value of the social relations ; but neither its 
presence nor its absence determines the question of fidel- 
ity to duty. The malice prepense which constitutes crime 
does not necessarily involve the emotion of hatred ; it ex- 
presses only the antecedent purpose to do the deed. The 
highway robber feels no emotion of hatred toward his vic- 
tim, but he has a definite intention to perpetrate the crime ; 
it is of the slightest importance what his emotions may be. 

The ultimate governing choice, that which determines 

moral character, is often less distinct in consciousness than 

ultimate accompanying emotions, and executive pur- 
choice in con- IT- X 11' 11 1_ 

sciousness. poses and volitions. It underlies all other 
exercises, is transparent and intangible, so to speak, and 
hence often escapes our direct scrutiny. It reveals itself 
in the current of life which it directs, and in the general 



RELATED FACTS AND INFERENCES. 



63 



tone of thought, and feeling, and action ; but what is called 
self-examination frequently occupies itself with thoughts 
and feelings, and fails to reach the seat of character. 
Direct, immediate observation of one's own moral state is 
difficult to attain ; and often the examination which results 
in strong confidence is quite superficial. Genuine honesty 
of heart must in the end lie open in consciousness. 

Moral consistency is persistence in the benevolent choice 
— regard to all well-being. The expression of that choice 
will vary with varying light and other condi- Moral 
tions. Benevolence may require us to do to- consistency, 
morrow what we cannot do to-day ; because our views of 
duty and our circumstances may change, exposing us, per- 
haps, to the charge of fickleness. Outward consistency 
has its value, but is only proximately attainable to finite 
beings. Moral consistency is essential; it is the genuine 
jewel. 



CHAPTER VII. 



RIGHT AND WRONG — DUTY, KNOWN AND UNKNOWN — 
NEED OF A REVELATION. 

The general sense of the term right in moral action is, 
that which is in conformity with obligation, and of wrong, 
Absolute right tnat which is opposed to obligation ; but there 
and wrong. j g an am biguity in the use of these terms which 
tends to confusion. Benevolence, a regard for sentient 
being, is right in its own nature, without any condition 
or limitation, and always implies virtue in the exercise. 
This may be called absolute right. The refusal to be 
benevolent is absolute wrong. No contingency, possible 
or supposable, can make it otherwise in fact or in ap- 
pearance. 

On the other hand, all executive action is contemplated 
in its relation to well-being, and is called right or wrong 
Relative according as it is, or is not, the form in which 

right and , 

wrong. benevolence expresses itself. That action 

which tends to promote well-being is right action, and will 
be performed by virtuous, intelligent men. This may be 
called the relative right, to distinguish it from benevolence, 
which is the absolute right. Executive action which is 
opposed to well-being is wrong, and, as distinguished from 
wrong in ultimate intention, it may be called relative wrong. 
Relative right and wrong are known, not by their intrinsic 
character, like benevolence and its opposite, but by their 
relation or tendency. 

64 



RIGHT AND WRONG. 



65 



There is another ambiguity in the use of the terms right 
and wrong, in reference to which discrimination is even 
more important. Executive action, considered 0bjective and 
apart from the agent, simply in its actual bear- ri^tand 0 
ing upon the good of sentient being, is called wrong - 
right or wrong, according to its tendency. This is object- 
ive right or objective wrong. Again, an act is contem- 
plated in its relation to the agent, and is called right when, 
with his particular views and convictions, it ought to be 
done ; and wrong when, under these circumstances, it ought 
not to be done. A right act, in this latter sense, involves 
a right ultimate intention, or choice, on the part of the 
agent; and a wrong act, a wrong intention — all without 
reference to the tendency of the act in its outward or 
objective character. This is subjective right or subjective 
wrong. The fact really contemplated in this view is the 
moral state of the agent, his moral rightness or wrongness. 

To illustrate : a physician gives a proper remedy, one 
tending to good. The act is objectively right ; it ought to 
be done. If he had a proper intention, the act Different com . 
is subjectively right ; he is virtuous in the do- binatlons - 
ing of it. Again, he gives a poison, tending to evil ; the 
act is objectively wrong; in general it ought not to be 
done. If he intends harm in the act, it is subjectively 
wrong ; he incurs guilt. He gives a proper remedy, think- 
ing it a poison and intending mischief ; the act is ob- 
jectively right and subjectively wrong. He gives a poison 
by mistake, with an honest intention ; the act is objectively 
wrong and subjectively right. All these different com- 
binations of right and wrong in action are possible and 
actual. The character of the agent depends upon the act 
subjectively considered, and not upon its objective char- 
acter. Wrong done proves a wrong- doer, a sinner, only 



66 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



when the wrong is subjective, or involves the wrong 
intention. 

It would seem desirable to limit the use of the terms 
right and wrong to acts viewed objectively, and to express 
subjective relations by the terms virtuous and sinful, secur- 
ing thus not only distinctness of expression, but clearness 
of thought as well. 

An act is sometimes spoken of as right or wrong per 
se — in itself. If anything is involved in this expression 
Right and beyond the objective character of the act, it 
wrong/*™. OU gh t to mean t h a t the performance of an 
act right per se necessarily implies virtue ; and of an 
act wrong per se, sin. This seems to be the sense in- 
tended by many writers. Thus the question was for- 
merly discussed, Is slaveholding wrong per se? If the 
question were answered affirmatively, the conclusion fol- 
lowed that every slaveholder is a sinner. But to justify 
this conclusion, such a definition must be given to slave- 
holding as to involve inevitably the wicked intention, e. g., 
the holding of a man as property without proper respect 
to his well-being. Thus every slaveholder is a sinner; but 
those who sustain the legal relation without such heartless- 
ness are not slaveholders. If the definition be so extended 
as to include these, then slaveholding is not wrong per se. 
The answer to such a question must turn upon a defini- 
tion, and the definition once settled, all discussion of the 
question is at an end. Is slaveholding wrong? is the 
natural and proper question for discussion. Then the in- 
quiry is in reference to the objective character of the action, 
whether on the whole it tends to evil. If this be settled 
affirmatively, then one who sustains the relation can escape 
condemnation only by showing that in his case the wicked 
intention does not exist. He must be justified on the 



DUTY, KNOWN AND UNKNOWN. 



67 



ground of his ignorance. No definition of any merely out- 
ward act or relation can be given, such as to exclude one 
involved in it from this defense. In order to such exclu- 
sion, subjective wickedness must be expressed in the defini- 
tion. Murder is wrong per se, because it implies a wicked 
purpose, and the only justification is to prove that one is 
not a murderer. Homicide is not wrong per se, because it 
may be accidental or justifiable. Stealing is wrong per se, 
because the name expresses the dishonest intention ; tak- 
ing the property of another without his knowledge or con- 
sent is not wrong per se, because it is not always stealing. 
Benevolence alone is right per se; the refusal to be benev- 
olent is wrong per se. 

A distinction is often made between the expedient and 
the right. The truly expedient must be that which, on the 
whole, is promotive of good. In this sense Expedient 
it is identical with the objective right. The and right, 
final test of the objective right is its bearing upon good, 
well-being ; we have no other means of knowing it. 
Hence, aside from the positive command of God, which 
rarely enjoins particular acts, we must determine outward 
duty by inquiring what, on the whole, is expedient, or 
promotive of the good ; we have no other guide. In refer- 
ence to the right state of heart, the inward duty, we are 
not dependent upon any such inquiry. The duty of be- 
nevolence is universal, absolute, not limited or determined 
by any consequences whatever. The term expedient is 
sometimes used in a limited sense, as that which is tempo- 
rarily or partially profitable — conducive to the immediate 
advantage of an individual, a party, or clique, but mis- 
chievous on the whole. In this sense it is not a guide to 
outward duty, and it is justly a reproach to be governed 
by it in action, 



68 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



It is urged by some that finite beings can never know 
with certainty what is expedient on the whole, and hence 
Difficulty of m ust have some other guide. It is true that 
knowing. tne knowledge of the expedient is never abso- 
lute, but it is just as sure as the knowledge of the out- 
wardly right. The only absolute knowledge of the right 
which finite beings can have pertains to the Tightness of 
the fundamental duty of benevolence. This should deter- 
mine the state of heart, but other conditions determine the 
outward conduct. In outward conduct, finite beings must 
govern themselves by apprehended tendencies and conse- 
quences. That, and that only, should be done which on the 
whole seems profitable, that is, conducive to general good. 

But does not this principle sanction the corrupt maxim 
that the end justifies the means? So far as pertains to the 
End and grand end of all action, the universal good, the 
means. maxim is not corrupt. This end justifies any 

and all means which tend to promote it, and all men sustain 
the maxim. But the maxim is false when applied to any 
limited good, or subordinate end. A means may promote 
a particular good, and yet be harmful on the whole. 
Hence no such end can justify all means. This was the 
alleged perversion of the maxim by the Jesuits. The 
building up of the church was their good, and falsehood 
and treachery were justified when they seemed to be con- 
ducive to this end. All means promotive of a particular 
end must be tested by their bearing on the great end. 

But is it ever right to " do evil that good may come " ? 
Yes, natural evil. This is the work of every day. We 
Evil for the bring about desirable ends by means which 
sake of good. - m .themselves involve pain, suffering, expense, 
natural evil. Evil in the sense of sin we may never do for 
the sake of any good. To commit sin for the sake of good 



DUTY, KNOWN AND UNKNOWN. 



6 9 



in the strict sense — that is, on account of the value of the 
good in itself — is an impossibility, and the claim, therefore, 
a hypocritical pretense. 

Are we permitted, then, to " choose the least of two 
evils " ? Certainly, the least of two natural evils. We 
rarely perform an outward act which does not 
involve such a choice. The least of two sins evils? 6 ° f 
we are never left to choose. 

The word duty has an ambiguity similar to that of right, 
arising from the objective and subjective application of the 
term. In its objective sense, duty is synony- Knowledge 
mous with the objective right, that which in °f duty- 
general ought to be done. In its subjective sense, refer- 
ence is had to the circumstances of the agent, and the term 
duty indicates that which is binding upon him. But we 
speak of duty as known and unknown, and of an anxious 
desire to know duty ; what is the significance of these ex- 
pressions? The fundamental, primal duty of benevolence 
is known to all moral agents — the duty to be honestly 
regardful of all well-being. The knowledge of this is a 
condition of moral agency. This is duty in the subjective 
sense. In reference to duty in this sense there can be no 
ignorance among moral beings; the knowledge is direct 
and absolute. But this is the point upon which moral 
character turns. When this is attended to, the moral char- 
acter is right ; hence there can be no ignorance of duty 
which hinders the fulfillment of obligation. 

But there is ignorance of objective, outward duty, of the 
things which are objectively right in conduct, and which 
would be duty if they were understood. No ignorance 
mortal knows perfectly the objective right; °*dut y . 
probably none but God thus knows it. But these un- 
known objective duties are not duties until they become 



70 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



known. Nothing can be duty, in the sense of morallv 
binding upon us at any time, which we have not at that 
time the means of knowing. The idea of unknown duty, 
as present obligation, is an impossible one. The maxim 
that " ignorance of the law excuses no one " is simply an 
expression of general expediency in the administration of 
human law. Still, it is not rigidly applied in any civilized 
society. Satisfactory proof • of entire ignorance will miti- 
gate or set aside the penalty ; as a principle of morals the 
maxim is utterly false. 

What, then, is meant by ignorance of duty, and by the 
apprehension that duty may be mistaken? When Ave 
what is understand ourselves, we mean that we are 
intended. ignorant what course of outward action it is 
wise and best to pursue, and we fear that we may take 
an undesirable course, which will bring regret, not self- 
condemnation. Whoever is honestly bent upon doing- 
duty, does it, even if he fails to find the course that is 
wise and best. His honest purpose leads him to use 
all accessible light and knowledge, and there is then no 
room for self-condemnation. If the present darkness be 
the result of the past neglect of light, there is sin in 
the past ; but present light is the measure of present 
duty. With this accords the Scripture : " Beloved, if our 
heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward 
God, and whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because 
we keep his commandments, and do those things that are 
pleasing in his sight." In the deepest darkness of the 
human soul, the path of duty, of present obligation, lies 
open, accessible. However great the perplexity upon 
questions of speculative belief, and of practical life, duty 
is always known. Failure in obligation is always without 



NEED OF A REVELATION. 



71 



excuse. Every moral being can, at any moment, take the 
attitude that is fundamentally right. 

Why, then, is a revelation needed, if there be no such 
ignorance as is necessarily fatal? It is not needed to 
reveal unknown duties — duties actually bind- Need of 
ing upon us, and which we sin in not per- revelation, 
forming. There are no such duties. But the first great 
need of a revelation is to furnish motives, considerations 
to persuade men to perform the duties already known. 
Among the . motives thus brought to light is the magni- 
tude of the good that men refuse to regard, the value of 
the blessedness, the well-being of God and man. There 
is power in the clearer apprehension of these things as 
divinely- revealed. A revelation of the rewards of virtue 
and the penalties of sin is a wholesome force ; not that 
hope and fear are the immediate motives to virtuous 
action, but they induce that consideration which is essen- 
tia^ A definite apprehension of God as a personal moral 
governor, and of his administration as given in revelation, 
is conducive to obedience. A clear statement of the great 
law of obligation as a divine enactment, although already 
known in principle, operates as a powerful force. Igno- 
rance of God and of his will is no excuse for sin, but a 
knowledge of him is highly promotive of virtue. Espe- 
cially that exhibition of the divine character, involved in 
the incarnation and the atonement, is needed to inspire 
men with benevolence ; and perhaps no virtue ever ex- 
isted among men except as the result of such revelation, 
more or less distinct. 

A second and subordinate need of revelation is to set 
before men courses of conduct that are wise and right, and 
which become duty when revealed. Among these are the 



72 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



proper constitution of the family, and the positive institu- 
tions of religion, the Sabbath, modes of worship, and other 
Subordinate outward ordinances. But it is not the chief 
need * object of revelation to solve problems of prac- 

tical, objective duty. These are mostly left to be wrought 
out in experience. The general principles and examples 
are all that could be given for guidance, or rather all that 
we could use if given. Our great want is motive to the 
performance of duty already known. For this chiefly the 
gospel is needed in the dark places of the earth. 

Revealed religion supervenes upon the system of obliga- 
tion as intuitively known, and gives effect and vitality to 
the knowledge. This is, in fact, our only ground of expec- 
tation that men will be brought to act in harmony with 
known obligation. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



CONSCIENCE — IS IT A GUIDE? 

CONSCIENCE is the faculty by which we perceive and 
affirm our own duty, or obligation. As obligation pertains 
primarily to the fundamental duty of benev- conscience, 

definition and 

olence, the ultimate regard for well-being, so office, 
conscience directly enjoins only this duty. Its action, thus 
far, is absolute and universal, requiring, in every moral 
being, benevolence, without any condition. This is the 
perception and affirmation of subjective duty. But when 
any course of outward action is seen or believed to be pro- 
motive of well-being, conscience enjoins as obligatory the 
pursuit of this course. Its action in this case is conditioned 
upon the action of the judgment in reference to objective 
or outward duty. Conscience, then, requires of us benevo- 
lence, and the use of all the means which seem to promote 
well-being. Conscience in this sense is an intellectual, 
rational faculty ; its office is to perceive obligation. 

Connected with this perception of duty, which is the 
legitimate work of conscience, there is an impulse of the 
sensibility, moving to the performance of duty= i mpu ise of 
Hence, we speak of conscience as impelling to conscience, 
the performance of an act of duty. With some writers this 
seems to be the leading use of the term conscience. 

Again, in the performance of an act, right or wrong, 
there is an affection of the sensibility corresponding with 
the character of the act; self-approbation, satisfaction for 

73 



74 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



right-doing, and self-condemnation, remorse for the wrong. 
This affection is more or less distinct, according to circum- 
conscience stances and character. In popular usage this 

approving and . . . . 

condemning. emotional exercise is often primarily indicated 
by the word conscience. 

Again, in aid of our rational faculty of conscience and 
judgment, we seem to have a spontaneous instinctive judg- 
iEsthetic ment, a kind of moral taste, which acts instan- 
conscience. taneously upon the contemplation of many 
courses of conduct. This may be called the aesthetic con- 
science. It acts in advance of the slower processes of the 
judgment proper, upon many questions of outward duty. 
We have an instantaneous judgment, or ethical instinct, in 
favor of all such conduct as is commonly embraced under 
any of the recognized virtues. An act of deception, or of 
taking another's property, is at once pronounced against by 
the aesthetic conscience, in advance of any examination of 
the particular circumstances — a judgment based upon the 
mere form and generally accepted character of the act. A 
sober second thought may reverse the decision, and ap- 
prove the act. This direct, spontaneous judgment is in 
part, perhaps, an original element of our constitution, in- 
tended as a prompter to outward virtues ; in part and 
chiefly it is an instantaneous application of past decisions, 
and judgments, and maxims, to the case in hand, deter- 
mined by the most obvious nature and relations of the act. 
Thus we have an instinct of justice, of mercy, of veracity, 
of magnanimity, and so for all the accepted virtues ; and 
every act which seems, at first view, to present the form of 
any of these virtues is at once indorsed by the aesthetic 
conscience. A particular education gives rise to additional 
spontaneous judgments. Thus the Puritan condemns at 
once anv act which seems inconsistent with a scrupulous 



CONSCIENCE — IS IT A GUIDE? 



75 



observance of the Sabbath, and the Catholic shrinks from 
eating flesh on Friday. Many writers seem to have no 
conception of conscience beyond this instinctive or im- 
mediate judgment. 

The question, Is conscience a sufficient guide to duty? 
is essentially answered in the foregoing analysis. The 
rational affirmation that we ought to regard Suffici encyof 
well-being on its own account is inevitably conscience - 
right ; and hence conscience is a guide to immediate duty. 
The obligation to regard well-being implies the obliga- 
tion to use all practicable means to promote it ; hence con- 
science, in its direct affirmation, imposes this obligation. 
Thus far there is agreement among all moral beings, and 
the decision cannot but be right. 

But to determine what outward act will promote well- 
being is a work of judgment, and not of rational intuition. 
By light and evidence derived from every work of 
accessible source, from revelation, from reason, judgment, 
from experience, our own and that of others, we deter- 
mine the objective right, or, in other words, the course 
of action which is promotive of well-being. In many 
cases there is no hesitation; the decision is immediate 
and infallible. In others we find room for doubt, and 
liability to error. But when the balance of probabilities is 
settled, then conscience indorses the probable course. And 
in this the conscience is right. We ought to follow our 
best judgment in outward duty. If not, what guide re- 
mains ? 

The poet is right in his " Universal Prayer" : 

"What conscience dictates to be done, 
Or warns me not to do, 
This, teach me, more than hell, to shun ; 
That, more than heaven, pursue." 



76 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



But, is the man virtuous who thus follows his conscience 
and an erroneous judgment? Certainly he is; it is the 
only virtue possible to men. Following his conscience he 
is benevolent ; and to be benevolent is to be virtuous. 

On the duty of following conscience there is no differ- 
ence of opinion among writers on morals. All agree that 
Diverse views. one mLlst follow his conscience even in error 
whateiy. Q f judgment, doing that which is objectively 
wrong ; but that he thereby fulfills obligation, all do not 
agree. Thus Archbishop Whateiy says: "Any one, there- 
fore, whose conscience has been in any way depraved, 
and who is proceeding on some wrong principle, cannot 
possibly act rightly, whether he act according to his con- 
science or against it, till he is cured of this defect in his 
moral judgment. If, however, any one has done his best 
to form a right judgment, but has fallen into error through 
unavoidable ignorance or weakness of understanding, we 
may hope that his all-seeing and merciful Judge will par- 
don this involuntary error." 

Dr. Alexander expresses himself still more decidedly : 
" It is true if a man's conscience dictates a certain action, 
he is morally bound to obey ; but if that ac- 

Alexander. ...... ... 

tion is in itself wrong, he commits sin m per- 
forming it, nevertheless. He who is under fundamental 
error is in a sad dilemma. Do what he will, he sins. If he 
disobey conscience, he knowingly sins, doing what he be- 
lieves to be wrong ; and a man never can be justified for 
doing what he believes to be wrong, even though it should 
turn out to be right. And if he obey conscience, perform- 
ing an act which is in itself wrong, he sins ; because he 
complies not with the law under which he is placed." A 
sad dilemma, truly ; and it is not strange that this writer 
retires from the discussion with the remark that " meta- 



CONSCIENCE — IS IT A GUIDE? 



77 



physical reasoning rather perplexes and obscures, than 
elucidates, such points." 

But the intuitive perceptions of men forever contradict 
the doctrine that there is sin, blameworthiness, in an hon- 
est, conscientious error. The ignorance may unreasonable 

. and unscript- 

lmply a past sin ; but the present rule 01 duty urai. 
is present light. This is the law under which we are 
placed. It is not the objective right that determines duty, 
but the right as apprehended. The doctrine is as unscript- 
ural as it is offensive to our necessary convictions. " If 
there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to 
that a man hath." " If ye were blind ye should have no 
sin, but now ye say, We see, therefore your sin remaineth." 
The servant, in the parable, that knew his lord's will and 
did it not is beaten with many stripes ; while he that knew 
not is beaten with few stripes ; manifestly on the ground 
that light is a test and measure of guilt. 

But do not the Scriptures recognize a sin of ignorance ? 
Yes, in two forms : first, an outward or formal defilement, 
contracted inadvertently, and discharged by sinsof 
prescribed outward observances and sacrifices. ignorance. 
No moral failure is implied. Secondly, sin is committed 
under comparative ignorance, and is spoken of as involv- 
ing less guilt. Such was the sin of those for whom the 
Saviour prayed : " Father, forgive them, for they know 
not what they do." Such was the sin of Saul of Tarsus in 
his persecution, of which he says, " I did it ignorantly, in 
unbelief." The ground upon which Paul pronounces the 
heathen guilty in their idolatry is not that they are doing 
what is outwardly wrong, but that they have the means of 
knowing the right. These principles are so obvious, as 
well as scriptural, that men in practical life never fail to 
apprehend them. 



78 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



Conscience, then, taken as our best judgment of duty, is 
our only guide ; and as a guide to rectitude or virtuous 
Rational conduct, the subjective right, it is infallible. 

conscience the . 11. 

guide. lhe judgment may fail as to the objective 

right, but conscience indicates all obligation. 

Let it be understood, however, that conscience is a sure 
guide only as the intellectual faculty by which we deter- 
Not the mine subjective duty. Conscience, as a mere 
emotional. impulse to duty, or as an emotion of self- 
approbation or disapprobation in view of any act, is never 
to be taken as a guide. To contemplate an act as per- 
formed, or to perform a doubtful act and wait for the 
result in feeling, is no proper consultation of conscience ; 
no mere feeling is a guide to duty. 

Nor, again, is the instinctive, aesthetic conscience an ulti- 
mate authority. It is like our appetites, designed to sug- 
Northe £ est the proper course of action; but there is 
aesthetic always an appeal from it to a fuller and more 
deliberate investigation. It serves to hold us in check, for 
the judgment to come to our aid, and the judgment may 
reverse its decisions. Thus, at first view, we shrink from 
any act of deception : for example, a false dispatch to mis- 
lead an enemy in war, a feint to divert a murderer from 
the track of his victim; but a calm judgment will justify 
the act. One educated as a Catholic hesitates to take 
flesh on Friday, and until he gets better light he. has no 
right to taste ; but a full investigation will relieve him 
from the restraint. He still follows conscience, while 
appealing from the spontaneous decision to the slower 
judgment. 

The truly conscientious man is he who takes, as his end 
of life, that which reason approves as the good ; thus he 
meets all real obligation, becomes benevolent, and neces- 



CONSCIENCE — IS IT A GUIDE? 



79 



sarily adopts such courses of outward conduct as approve 
themselves to his judgment. Such a man alone follows 
conscience. It is a mistake to call one con- True consci . 
scientious who has a strong instinct of the entlousn ess. 
right, and yields to it as an impulse. It is a very plausible 
form of impulsive action, but does not involve benevolence, 
the only genuine rectitude. Nor is he necessarily conscien- 
tious who pursues some right outward course, with the full 
conviction that he ought to pursue it. The first and chief 
requirement of conscience is benevolence ; and if this be 
not rendered, there can be no conscientiousness in outward 
life. It is right and duty to be honest in business ; and 
the man who scrupulously discharges this outward duty is 
sometimes regarded as conscientious ; and so he may be, 
but the outward rightness does not prove it. Conscien- 
tiousness is an inward state, and not any outward act or 
course whatsoever. 

But was not Saul conscientious in his course of persecu- 
tion, since he verily thought he ought to do many things 
contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth? Saul . s consC i_ 
No, he had not a right or benevolent heart, entiousness - 
and hence failed to meet the primary requisition of con- 
science. His own testimony is conclusive : " Being ex- 
ceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto 
strange cities " — a spirit utterly opposed to benevolence. 
He was sincere in his belief that what he was doing ought 
to be done, but he knew that the hatred which he cher- 
ished was wrong. It would not have materially changed 
the case if his outward course had been right. The malice 
within would have corrupted the whole action, and ex- 
cluded conscientiousness. Sincerity in reference to the 
outward action, with a bitter, malignant heart, is the char- 
acteristic of fanaticism ; and the moral state is all the same, 



8o 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



whether the outward action be right or wrong. Benevo- 
lence alone is conscientiousness. 

Honesty, in the high sense of the word, is conscientious- 
ness. It is meeting one's convictions ; and the first grand 

conviction of a moral being is that all well- 
True honesty. 

being must be regarded. Honesty, then, must 
begin at the foundation, with Tightness of heart. Thus the 
honest man is the thoroughly true man — as Pope calls him, 
" the noblest work of God." 

Two persons equally conscientious may differ much in 
their outward conduct. They are alike in their subjective 
Difference of state, act upon the same great principles, are 
conduct. equally virtuous and worthy of approbation; but 
they differ in the light they have, and hence in their judg- 
ment of outward duty. There is ground for mutual con- 
fidence ; they can trust each other's hearts while they dis- 
trust the judgment. 

The doctrine is sometimes maintained, perhaps more 
often reprobated, that it is not important what one believes 
sincerity, or does if he is only sincere ; he is virtuous and 

partial and ..... 

complete. to be approved. In one view the doctrine is 
false. The partial sincerity involved in a particular course 
of conduct, which is believed to be right, does not neces- 
sarily imply moral Tightness. This was the sincerity of 
Paul in his persecution. 

In another view the doctrine is true. The sincerity 
which begins with the heart and sets it right upon the 
great point of obligation, involves all that is essential to 
moral rectitude. The theoretic belief may be inadequate 
and erroneous, the outward life defective, according to the 
standard of objective Tightness; but the man is right at 
heart, and cannot be in any fatal error. The usual illustra- 
- tions of a traveler that has wandered from the path, and 



CONSCIENCE — IS IT A GUIDE? 



8 1 



of a ship's crew that have lost their reckoning, by which it 
is attempted to prove that sincerity cannot save from the 
destruction which comes from error, are utterly fallacious. 
They overlook the distinction between an error of the heart 
and of the head, and assume that men can be mistaken in 
fundamental duty, when with all honesty of heart they aim 
to be right. 

Is conscience the creature of education? Certainly not; 
it is one of the original faculties of our moral constitution. 
It is even doubtful whether the rational, intui- Education of 
tive faculty, which alone discerns obligation, conscience - 
can be educated in any proper sense. Perhaps it may be 
educated, in the same sense as the eye, to see with dis- 
crimination what, without education, it would still see. 
No being can be taught obligation who has not the idea 
to begin with. The judgment may be educated to discern 
more clearly the objective right. The feeling of obligation 
may be quickened by culture, and the aesthetic moral sense 
may be developed and modified ; but in none of these 
senses is conscience made by education. 

By an enlightened conscience we ought to mean an en- 
lightened judgment, a clear discernment of outward duty. 
A tender conscience is a keen sensibility 111 Conscience, 

• i\r enlightened, 

reference to right and wrong. Men are prob- tender, seared, 
ably different constitutionally in this respect, and the dif- 
ference is enhanced by habits of life. A seared conscience 
is a hardened sensibility, an obtuseness of feeling in refer- 
ence to moral conduct, the result of habits of sin. This is 
sometimes partial, sometimes general ; but however ex- 
treme the obtuseness of feeling, there must remain, while 
moral agency remains, the intellectual apprehension of 
obligation. Conscience proper can be obliterated only by 
the annihilation of moral agency. By a perverted con- 



82 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



science we should mean a perverted instinct, the aesthetic 
conscience, which was not given as an ultimate reliance ; 
Perverted or we m ight refer to the judgment of outward 
conscience. duty, misled by education, by custom, and 
habits of life. But the rational faculty of conscience, that 
which perceives obligation, cannot be perverted. The affir- 
mation of primary duty is forever the same. The great 
axiom in morals involving the obligation to regard well- 
being, rests upon the same general foundation as an axiom 
in mathematics ; and no perversion of the reason is possible 
which admits of the denial of one more than of the other. 
Such a condition, in either case, involves a subversion rather 
than a perversion. The man has ceased to be rational and 
accountable. 

Some, even among more recent ethical writers, place the 
sense of obligation primarily in the feelings. They admit 
Feeling of an antecedent perception of the relations of 
obligation. {; j ie act j orij b ut no id ea or thought or fact of 

obligation arises, as they claim, until the feeling of obliga- 
tion is developed, a movement of the sensibility. Such a 
view transfers to the sensibility a force and authority be- 
longing to the reason alone. There is unquestionably a 
feeling of obligation, but, like all other feelings, it waits 
on the action of the intelligence, and the fact of obligation 
comes with the perception of the intelligence. The feeling- 
follows, and enforces the obligation as motive. If the feel- 
ing should fail, as it sometimes seems to do, the perception 
and the fact of obligation would remain. 



CHAPTER IX. 



UNITY OR SIMPLICITY OF MORAL ACTION. 

In order to a more complete elucidation of the nature of 
moral action, it seems necessary to discuss the question of 
its entireness or unity. Can virtue and sin co- Question 
exist in the same heart ? It is perfectly pos- stated, 
sible that they should alternate, because either is always in 
the power of every moral agent. The virtuous man can 
become sinful ; the sinful man can become virtuous. Can 
the same man be both at the same time? With few ex- 
ceptions, writers on morals and theology answer this ques- 
tion in the affirmative ; but if the foregoing views of the 
nature of moral action, of sin and virtue, be correct, the 
question must be answered in the negative. 

Let it be remembered that all moral action is voluntary ; 
that virtue and sin are found in the action of the will, in 
ultimate choice alone ; that virtue is the volun- virtue and sin 
tary choice or regard of well-being as good, or contradlctor y- 
on its own account, and that nothing else is virtue ; that 
sin is the voluntary refusal to choose or regard well-being, 
and that nothing else is sin ; and the conclusion seems in- 
evitable that the two cannot coexist, that where one is the 
other cannot be. 

The two forms of action are directly contradictory to 
each other, and, in the very nature of the case, each must 
exclude the other. Their coexistence is neither conceivable 
nor possible but upon the hypothesis of a dual action of 

83 



8 4 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



the will, which in effect involves two wills, and a divided 
personality. Even then there is no proper coexistence, for 
we have essentially two persons instead of one. If virtue 
and sin, then, are confined to the action of the will, there 
would scarce seem room for argument ; and if they are 
not confined to the action of the will, they are no longer 
virtue and sin. But let us attend to the various hypotheses 
upon which a deficiency of virtue is maintained, resulting 
in a character in one point of view praiseworthy, and in 
another blameworthy, at the same time, or in reference to 
the same action. 

It is maintained by some that as the powers of the race 
have been dwarfed by the fall, or by the sin of past gen- 
virtue defect- erations, and as the law of duty is the same as 

ive from the . 

fail. for a race with perfect powers, all fulfillment 

of obligation is necessarily defective ; the virtue must fall 
short of the true standard, as the powers employed do of 
full perfection. 

The obvious mistake here is in the assumption that the 
law of duty is not adapted to the powers of the subject, 
obligation whatever those powers may be. By the law 
and ability. of nature> ability and obligation go hand in 

hand ; and the very conception of the existence of obliga- 
tion in the sense of present duty, where there is no ability, 
is impossible. The divine law corresponds in express terms 
with this law of nature : " Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, 
and with all thy strength." Here the measure of duty is 
the power we have, not any ideal power, such as the race 
might be imagined to have if there had been no sin. But 
is not this accommodating the law to human infirmity? 
Certainly it is, to infirmity of power; and a law which is 
not accommodated to human infirmity is no law of duty or 



UNITY OR SIMPLICITY OF MORAL ACTION. 85 

obligation. If we deny our necessary convictions in this 
matter, there is an end of all knowledge of duty. 

But it is urged again that by our own sin we have 
weakened our energies and obscured our minds, while the 
law of duty requires of us according to the Defects from 
powers we might have had. It is not to be P ersonalsin - 
supposed that men by any wicked act of their own should 
diminish their obligation or duty. This argument is only 
plausible. Men can by their own sinful act diminish their 
power to do, and to the same extent their subsequent 
obligation to do. They are held responsible for that past 
act or course of sin by which their powers were injured, 
and are liable to punishment for it ; but ever after it is 
required of them according to that they have, and not ac- 
cording to that they have not. This we know directly and 
absolutely, as we know a truth of mathematics. " But can 
a man who owes a debt cancel his obligation to pay it by 
willfully destroying his own property?" He cannot es- 
cape the fact of past obligation nor the guilt of willfully 
declining to meet it ; but for all subsequent time he ful- 
fills actual obligation by doing the best he can. When 
ability returns, the obligation revives in all its force. 
The fact of weakened powers, then, affords no foundation 
for the idea of defective virtue, whether the power was 
lost by the fault of others, or by our own. 

Again, it is said that the purpose or intention, the act of 
the will, may be right, and yet many of the thoughts and 
feelings may be such as they ought not to be. Sin in thought 
It may be replied that such thoughts and feel- and feeling - 
ings do not fall within the field of obligation. They are 
involuntary exercises, to a greater or less extent indirectly 
under the control of the will. If the voluntary attitude be 
right, the thoughts and feelings will be controlled so far 



86 MORAL SCIENCE. 

as they are subject to the will ; beyond this there is no 
power, and no obligation. It should be remembered that 
temptation to sin, addressed to the thought or feeling, is 
not sin, except as it is voluntarily admitted or cherished. 
What are called wicked thoughts and feelings are some- 
times of this nature. 

Another theory is that the motives which bear upon us 
at any time are various, some good and others bad, and 
Mixed tnat tne resu lting action must be complex like 

motives. t j le mot i veSj partly good and partly bad. 
There is confusion in the use of the term motive. Motives 
may be contemplated in two points of view : first, as the 
outward facts and forces which address themselves to the 
thought and feeling, and secondly, as the inward reason in 
view of which the mind chooses and acts. Thus motives 
may be viewed as objective and subjective. The charac- 
ter of the action must turn upon the subjective motive ; 
that is, the reason which is accepted as the ground of 
action. It matters not what the objective motives may 
be ; only that which actually moves the will is of account 
in character. Motives, objectively considered, are of two 
classes : those which appeal to the intelligence and per- 
suade to a regard for good on its own account ; and those 
which address the feelings, desires, and passions, and per- 
suade to a disregard of good. To suppose that these two 
are accepted at the same time as reasons of action, involves 
that contradictory movement of the will, the dual action, 
which we have seen to be impossible. Motives are mixed 
objectively, not subjectively; thus they afford no founda- 
tion for mixed action. 

Again, it is maintained that the choice of good, in which 
virtue lies, may be defective, from its not embracing all 
good, or rather all apprehended good. But we have seen 



UNITY OR SIMPLICITY OF MORAL ACTION. 87 



that to regard good in a single instance on its own account, 
which is implied in the choice of good, is to regard all 
good. It is the benevolent attitude of will, Partial regard 
and any other good will be embraced without of £ ood - 
any change of spirit or of action. If one arbitrarily limits 
his regard to the interests which are agreeable to him, or 
sustain some special relation to him, then regard for good 
is not at all his principle of action. He is not benevolent 
even in a partial sense. Partial benevolence is a self-con- 
tradiction. 

A more common ground upon which defectiveness of 
virtue is maintained, is that the choice of good, or well- 
being, though genuine, may lack intensity, and Defici e ncy of 
thus the action be partly right, partly wrong. intensit y- 
A psychological inquiry arises here, whether we can predi- 
cate different degrees of intensity of that ultimate attitude 
of the will which alone is moral action. It is conceivable, 
and perhaps probable, that the different degrees of inten- 
sity in our action pertain to our emotional and executive 
activity, rather than to the ultimate attitude of the will. In 
that case the regulation of the intensity of our action lies 
out of the field of obligation. But if the will acts with a 
varying intensity in its ultimate, moral action, the regula- 
tion of this intensity may be under our control or it may 
not. If not, then obligation does not pertain to it. All 
that can be required is that our benevolence be genuine ; 
and the degree of its intensity will be determined by con- 
ditions for which we are not responsible. But if, on the 
other hand, the will determines the intensity of the ulti- 
mate choice as well as its general character — the only sup- 
position upon which it becomes an element of moral action 
— then, in order to a genuine choice at all, the will must 
act with all its energy. If it does not, then self-indulgence 



88 



MURAL SCIENCE. 



or personal ease is preferred to the general good, and the 
choice is utterly vicious ; or the will is divided between the 
regard for good and the refusal to regard it, a case of that 
contradictory, dual action which is inconceivable and im- 
possible. The inference, popularly expressed, is that virt- 
uous action, to be genuine, must be whole-hearted. Any 
reservation of power corrupts the whole. 

A more popular form in which the doctrine of mixed 
action is maintained, is found in the idea that a good man, 
Acts opposed still retaining his benevolent, virtuous choice, 

to ultimate . 

choice. may, irom sudden impulse, perform acts m 

conflict with this choice, and thus be virtuous in his funda- 
mental choice, and sinful in the opposing acts. Thus, it is 
said, a man with a purpose to go to Xew York may turn 
aside for business or pleasure, without surrendering his 
final purpose. The execution of it is merely delayed. 
But the illustration does not meet the case. The going to 
Xew York and the turning aside for business or pleasure, 
are both proximate to some other end of pleasure or of 
profit, to which they both contribute. Hence the two 
actions harmonize in their relation to that ulterior purpose. 
But the relation of ultimate choice to executive action is 
totally different. The benevolent choice, while it exists, 
necessitates the performance of all acts judged to be pro- 
motive of the good, and the abstaining from all others. If 
an opposing act be performed, then benevolence has failed ; 
another and opposing principle of action is accepted. It 
is doubtless true that a good man, yielding to impulse or 
temptation, and sinning, has a feeling or expectation that 
he shall return to his virtuous, benevolent life ; but such a 
feeling or thought is not benevolence. It is doubtless true 
that many good thoughts and feelings and proximate pur- 
poses survive a fall into sin, and coexist with it, and seem, 



UNITY OR SIMPLICITY OF MORAL ACTION. 89 



in a degree, to obscure to the erring man the nature of his 
action and his character. But these good thoughts and 
feelings and purposes are not virtue ; they are but consti- 
tutional exercises, or the echo of a goodness that has failed. 
Such thoughts and feelings constitute a saving power, a 
constant pressure to restore the man from his wayward 
action, and terminate the lapse from righteousness. All 
that goes to make up the habit of action remains, an ever- 
present motive soliciting a return from the aberration. 
Thus we confidently expect when a good man falls he will 
rise again ; and there is ground for the expectation in the 
nature of the case, as well as in the divine promise. There 
are doubtless other forms in which the doctrine of mixed 
action is set forth, but they must involve essentially the 
same principles as those which have been presented. In 
every form they seem to overlook the very nature of moral 
action. 

A thorough examination of the teachings of Scripture 
would show that they are in harmony with the necessary 
deductions of our reason upon this question. scripture 
There are several passages which seem to teach teaching, 
the doctrine of simplicity of action with almost philosoph- 
ical directness, and there are many passages in which the 
doctrine seems to be assumed ; and we look in vain for a 
passage which, upon any probable interpretation, implies 
the opposite doctrine. Take the following texts as ex- 
amples : " No man can serve two masters ; either he will 
hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to 
the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and 
mammon." " He that is faithful in that which is least, is 
faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least, 
is unjust also in much." "Except a man forsake all that 
he hath, he cannot be my disciple." " For whosoever shall 



90 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is 
guilty of all." " If any man love the world, the love of the 
Father is not in him." The Saviour's exhortation: "Be ye 
therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven 
is perfect," taken in its connection, accords with the doc- 
trine. The perfect love which he requires is simply genuine 
love, the benevolence which embraces enemies and friends, 
the evil and the good. It is not an exalted state of virtue 
to which he exhorts, but simply genuine virtue. Nothing 
lower than this meets his approbation at all. 

The spontaneous utterances of the teachers of practical 
virtue and religion take the same form. With one voice 
Practical tne y require whole-heartedness, and announce 
teachmg. that any voluntary reservation corrupts the 
whole action, and makes the apparent virtue a hypocrisy. 
It is only when a conflicting theory comes to mind, and 
qualifies the expression, that we hear any other voice ; and 
the theory is never suggested to one who presents the 
earnest inquiry : " Wherewith shall I come before the Lord 
and bow myself before the high God? " 

Even philosophical writers, with their attention directed 
to the nature of moral action, often announce the doctrine 
Spontaneous of simplicity or unity of action in the strong- 
Taylor! 2 " est terms. Thus, Dr. N. W T . Taylor : " While 
such is the peculiar and exclusive character of the benevo- 
lent and selfish preference, every moral being is doomed 
by a necessity of nature to place himself under the abso- 
lute dominion and control of the one or the other of these 
preferences. It is an ordinance of his very being, that he 
cannot serve both these masters, and must serve one. The 
preference of one of the only two objects of moral choice 
excludes the other from all thought except to oppose and 
resist it, and therefore shuts off all controlling influence 



UNITY OR SIMPLICITY OF MORAL ACTION. 9 1 



from it as an object to be attained, as it were, by its utter 
annihilation, and so consecrates his whole being to the at- 
tainment of the supreme object. He thinks, he feels, he 
wills, he acts, he lives, or, as the case may be, he dies for 
it. Such is the nature, such the tendency of each of the 
two great moral principles, or preferences of a moral being, 
as a predominant principle." Dr. Taylor, in other places, 
discards the doctrine of simplicity of action, but without 
explaining the grounds of its rejection. And yet he has 
not undertaken to show how the will can be divided be- 
tween these two naturally contradictory principles of ac- 
tion. There ought to be some strong reason for rejecting 
a view which seems an inevitable deduction from the very 
nature of moral action, and which is essential to a proper 
presentation of practical duty ; a view, too, which is not 
only consistent with the general current of Scripture doc- 
trine, but seems to be inculcated by its express words. 

The following popular objections present some of the 
reasons that are supposed to bear against the doctrine. 

The prevailing consciousness of men is a refutation of 
the doctrine. It is the feeling of all who reflect on their 
own moral state, even of the best men, that objections, 

, . , , ii-i popular con- 

their goodness is not complete, that their best sciousness. 
achievements are marred with deficiency. " Forgive the 
iniquity of our most holy things," has been the petition of 
the good in all times. They neither wholly approve nor 
wholly condemn themselves. No mere logical inference 
can stand against this testimony of the common conscious- 
ness of men. 

The general impression of deficient goodness is ad- 
mitted ; and the fact of deficiency is also admitted ; but it 
is a deficiency which arises from the alternation of good 
and evil in the heart, and not from their coexistence. A 



92 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



brief retrospect of a good man's experience will bring into 
view things to approve and things to condemn ; and hence 
the impression which he has of a mixed life 
and character. His consciousness on the sub- 
ject is not so definite as to discriminate between these two 
forms of mixture ; either of the two will account for his 
experience, and explain the general consciousness. We are 
at liberty, then, in the presence of this general testimony, 
to adopt that view which the nature of the case seems to 
require. 

Again, allowance must be made for some confusion in 
the minds even of good men in reference to the nature of 
confusion of virtue and of sin. A want of discrimination 
thought. between thoughts and feelings and purposes, 
and a failure to locate the moral element in its proper 
place, would produce a general impression of the coexist- 
ence of virtue and sin, even when there is no such coexist- 
ence. We have seen that the seat of moral character is 
below the surface of thought, and feeling, and purpose, and 
that the reflective consciousness often fails to reach it. 
Hence, the judgments of men in reference to their own 
present moral state are always to be received with caution. 
Effect of Some allowance, too, must be made for the 
theories. theories of moral character which are in vogue. 
These will be reflected in the experimental consciousness. 
Instead of being proof of the theory, the consciousness is 
simply the result of the theory. The case of the person in 
President Edwards' congregation who was convicted for the 
sin of Adam, is an instance in point. But no vague impres- 
sion of the general consciousness, which admits of various 
satisfactory explanations, can be urged in opposition to the 
clear intuitions of the mind and the teachings of Scripture. 

Another objection brings in the negative testimony of 



UNITY OR SIMPLICITY OF MORAL ACTION. 



93 



consciousness against the theory of unity of action. It is 
said that when a good man falls into sin, if the character 
changes from wholly good to wholly bad, there Negative 
ought to be a shock in experience, a convul- testimony, 
sion, as in the fall of an angel and his transformation into a 
demon. Consciousness reveals no such convulsion. The 
man is often left in great uncertainty as to the fact of his 
failure, and may need some light from without to reveal it. 
This experience is supposed to indicate that the only 
change is in the ratio of the good and the bad in the soul, 
involving a little less of the good, and a little more of the 
bad. 

We must bear in mind the ambiguity of the word char- 
acter. It is often used to embrace all that belongs to the 
soul, thoughts, feelings, purposes, all in the 

111 i i Answer. 

man that relates to the present, the past, and 
the future. Our inquiry does not relate to character in 
this wide sense, but to character as expressing simply the 
moral status, the condition as to virtue and sin at a par- 
ticular moment. A change from virtuous to sinful action 
does not necessarily imply a change in any thought or 
feeling or proximate purpose. These, in general, do not 
admit of any sudden change. If the moral character be- 
comes permanently changed, the thoughts and feelings and 
purposes will be modified to a greater or less extent. But 
yielding to a sudden temptation to evil does not affect 
at once these indications of the superficial consciousness. 
There is for the moment a surrender of the principle of 
right action which underlies these conscious exercises ; 
then the right principle is resumed again, and the current 
of conscious action goes on without interruption. It may 
require subsequent reflection, and an earnest inquest upon 
one's self, to bring out into full consciousness the fact of 



94 MORAL SCIENCE: 

sin. It is not rare that the great moral change of life, the 
commencement of a life of virtue, occurs without any such 
experience as to reveal the fact in immediate consciousness. 
It is common to refer this great moral change to a moment 
of high emotional experience, but often there is no such 
experience ; and when there is, it probably does not mark 
the precise instant of the moral change. That every 
sudden lapse into sin should be marked by an instanta- 
neous emotional experience, is still less probable. 

The objection assumes a difference between the virtuous 
and the sinful, which in general does not exist. The dif- 
Assumed ference is in moral character, while in many 
difference. thoughts and feelings and purposes they are 
alike. The good man is not an angel in ecstatic emotion 
and exalted view, and the bad man is not a demon in 
malignant feeling and malicious purpose. These are but 
the extreme points toward which their divergent courses 
tend. In this life, these points are probably never reached. 
They are the result of a long course of development and 
growth. The difference in moral character is indeed a 
capital one, but other differences are more distinct in im- 
mediate consciousness. 

Again, it is objected that if virtue, wherever it exists, is 
entire ancl complete, then there is no room for improve- 
™ fx, ment, for growth ; no use for moral discipline 

No room tor ' o ' r 

growth. anc | cu i|- ure Th e man ma y fog dismissed from 

the world as finished. 

There is still room for establishment in virtue, for the 
attainment of persistence and stability, a habit of virtuous 
action. Character, in the broader sense, is in- 

Answer. , , . 

complete trom moral inconstancy. Is not this 
condition of instability the conscious weakness and want of 
all in their first experience of a virtuous life? The attain- 



UNITY OR SIMPLICITY OF MORAL ACTION. 95 



ment of greater stability is one of the results of " patient 
continuance in well-doing." In this respect the work is 
essentially the same as to eliminate the remaining evil from 
a heart in which virtue and sin should coexist, as upon the 
hypothesis of mixed action. On the hypothesis of simplic- 
ity of action the struggle is between two forces, one within 
and the other without the citadel ; upon the other hypothe- 
sis the opposing forces have joint possession. 

Then, again, there remains, as work to be done, the at- 
tainment of all the particular virtues and graces of charac- 
ter. Benevolence is the root or germ of them A complete 
all ; but a complete character, in the broader character, 
sense, involves the carrying out of this principle in all re- 
lations, under the guidance of " sound wisdom and discre- 
tion." With time, and opportunity, and self-culture, the 
principle of benevolence extends its transforming power 
to the whole inner and outer life. Here is work, even in 
the domain of one's own character, for the longest earthly 
career, and room for every form of discipline. 

But are there no degrees of goodness? Are all good 
men equally virtuous ? And is the same man no more virt- 
uous after years of experience and progress Degrees of 
than at the commencement of his virtuous goodness, 
course? If virtue is complete wherever it exists at all, it 
would seem to follow that no good man can be more virt- 
uous than another ; and this is contrary to the instinctive 
judgment of men. 

One man may be more virtuous than another in the 
sense that his virtue is more persistent, and suffers less 
interruption. There is more of virtue in his 

Answer. 

continuous life. In the same way a man may 

be more virtuous at one period of life than at another. 

Then, again, one man may afford a better example of prac- 



9 6 



.MORAL SCIENCE. 



tical virtue than another ; and every man may make prog- 
ress in the application of the law of benevolence to his 
outward life. These differences in character afford abun- 
dant ground for the popular impression of different degrees 
of virtue. But whether, in reference to the momentary 
moral state, one good man is more virtuous than another, 
in the sense of more praiseworthy, is a curious question, 
somewhat difficult to answer upon either of the two 
hypotheses of moral character. If there be such a differ- 
ence, is the higher virtue with him who has the higher 
light, and superior advantages and motives for a virtuous 
life, or with him whose situation is less favorable? We 
certainly admire more the virtue that struggles through 
difficulties, and "comes out of great tribulation." It ex- 
cites surprise, and the surprise enhances our approbation. 
The probability would seem to be that all virtuous beings, 
in reference to their momentary moral state, are equally 
praiseworthy. They differ in the permanency of their 
fidelity, in the intensity and energy of their virtuous 
activities, in the success with which they apply the law of 
benevolence to all outward action, and in the magnitude 
of the pow r ers and energies subjected to that law. 

In reference to degrees of sinfulness the case is some- 
what different. The sruilt of sin undoubtedlv increases 



Degrees of with the light under which the sin is com- 
sinfuiness. m i t ted. Sin is the refusal to regard well- 
being, and the guilt or ill-desert of it must be proportioned 
to the apprehended value of the good that is disregarded. 
Every additional interest perceived enhances the guilt of 
Temptation persistence in the sin. The effect of tempta- 
and guilt. t j on U p Gn t } le guilt of sin is to be determined 
on this principle. When temptation obscures the under- 
standing, diminishes the light, it would seem to abate from 



UNITY OR SIMPLICITY OF MORAL ACTION. 97 



the guilt ; but if, as the case often seems to be, temptation 
quickens the perceptions, and places in a stronger light the 
good or evil involved, it must increase the guilt of trans- 
gression. Perhaps no one has so strong a sense of the 
guilt of murder as he who has stood face to face with the 
crime, with the deliberate thought of its perpetration. In 
this case it may not be the temptation proper that increases 
the light, but attendant circumstances. At every point of 
his career, the sinner is guilty of disregarding all known 
good, and the guilt must increase with his wider vision. 
The converse of this principle does not seem to apply in 
the case of virtue. The virtue may not increase necessa- 
rily with the sense of the value of the good regarded. 

Upon the theory of simplicity of action, is one justified 
in the claim to have lived for any definite time in the 
past, without any moral failure? There is no claim of past 
ground of positive knowledge that there has sinlessness - 
been no such failure. Even present failure is not always 
a matter of distinct consciousness ; and the past belongs 
to memory and not to consciousness. Only distinct con- 
sciousnesses reappear in memory, and even these are often 
lost. Aside from any question of propriety or impropriety 
on other grounds, no claim can be justified that is more 
positive than the knowledge. 

In concluding this topic, it may be said that the doctrine 
of simplicity of action seems a logical inference from the 
axiom that moral character, virtue, and sin, can Logical result 
be predicated only of voluntary states ; and if of axiom " 
this axiom be rejected, all clear ideas of virtue and sin, of 
good and ill desert, must go with it. Sin that has not its 
seat in the voluntary action can never be felt, or thought 
of, as sin. That is the deepest view of sin which brings 
it nearest to our personal responsibility ; any other view 



9 8 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



must break the force of obligation to virtue, and of con- 
demnation for sin. The doctrine of simplicity of action 
seems to contribute to clearer apprehensions of the nature 
of moral character, of sin and holiness ; in other respects 
its practical bearings may not differ greatly from those of 
the more prevalent view. The theory of mixed action 
presents formidable difficulties of its own, which it is not 
necessary to consider here. 



CHAPTER X. 



THEORIES OF OBLIGATION. 

THE great problem in morals is, the origin of duty, or 
the nature and foundation of obligation. How, under 
what circumstances, does the perception or The great 
affirmation of obligation arise in the mind ; and question, 
what is that obligation in its simple, elementary form? 
"The nature of virtue" is sometimes given as an expres- 
sion of the problem ; but this is only one side of the ques- 
tion; the nature of sin would convey the idea as well. 
Virtue and sin are the two opposite modes of action in 
view of obligation ; the real question is, What is obliga- 
tion, as to its nature and the conditions of its existence ? 

The answer to this question must of course be found 
among our primary intuitions and perceptions ; and, at first 
thought, we should anticipate perfect har- Different 
mony among ethical writers upon the point. answers. 
But, remarkable as it may seem, it is the point upon which 
the gravest differences of opinion exist. In practical 
morals, where we might look for differences of judgment, 
there is essential harmony ; in the theory of the science 
there is as yet no harmony. These differences must arise, 
not from the fact that men differ in the data of conscious- 
ness, but from the different degrees of success Reasons of 
in the analysis and interpretation of the facts differences, 
of consciousness. Our primary perceptions are in accord- 
ance with facts, and facts are forever the same ; but there 



IOO 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



are various degrees of success in reaching and expressing 
these perceptions. The case has many parallels. In gen- 
eral it is most difficult to explain the origin and mode of 
our knowledge, when the knowledge is immediate and 
direct. Nothing is more surely and directly known than 
the fact of our own existence ; but the origin and history 
of the knowledge it is difficult to trace. A belief in the 
being of God is generally held, but whence the origin and 
authority of the belief is matter of question. Our intuitive 
judgments and direct perceptions we fail to trace, while we 
can always give a reason for the results of our laborious 
processes and deductions. This view may indicate the 
occasion of difference on a question so fundamental as the 
origin of obligation. 

Without attempting a history of ethical opinion, or even 
a synopsis of the various shades of doctrine which have had 
currency, we may still be profited by a brief review of 
some of the leading theories of obligation which have pre- 
vailed, or are still in vogue. 

According to the older Greek Philosophy, as represented 
by Socrates and Plato, right action is the certain and neces- 
socrates and sai T result of knowledge. All wrong action is 
piato. result of ignorance ; of wrong action in 

spite of knowledge, they seem to have had no distinct 
conception. The idea involves no proper conception of 
moral merit or demerit. The only failure is ignorance, 
and knowledge is the remedy. 

Aristotle held that personal happiness is the great good, 
and virtue is moderation ; such a regulation of the desires 
view of an< ^ passions as leads to happiness — the attain - 

Anstotie. me nt of the golden mean between excessive 
indulgence and the suppression of desire. The ultimate 
aim of virtuous action is, thus, one's own happiness. 



THEORIES OF OBLIGATION. 



IOI 



Two prominent ideas divided the schools of Grecian 
Philosophy after these leaders. One view is represented 
by the Stoics, who inculcated a contempt of Doctr ine of 
happiness, treated the advantages and disad- the Stolcs - 
vantages of life, its pains and pleasures, with equal indif- 
ference, and made the good to consist in living according 
to nature and reason. This is virtue, right action, the sole 
good ; not because of the satisfaction resulting, but be- 
cause of its rightness. The connection between virtue and 
happiness is an accident. The standard or law of right 
action is revealed in nature, and is not regulated by any 
reference to well-being in the form of happiness, either of 
ourselves or others. The virtuous man is self-sufficient, 
because in his virtuousness he has attained the true good, 
and hence all that is essential is within his own control. 

The other view was maintained by the Epicureans, who 
held that happiness, in the sense of enjoyment, is the true 
good, and the proper aim of life. Epicurus of the 
himself was not properly a sensualist. His Epicureans, 
idea of happiness was not realized in immediate or cor- 
poreal pleasure, but in the higher pleasures of the mind. 
He was a materialist, and hence his rules of conduct had 
no scope beyond the present life. 

The leading theories of modern times may be gathered 
about two similar centers, either making well-being or 
happiness the supreme good, or finding ulti- Modem 
mate good in the right, objective or subjec- theories, 
tive. Of those which account happiness the supreme 
good, there are again two classes : first, the theories which 
represent one's own happiness as the ultimate aim, and 
grand motive, of all virtuous action ; and secondly, those 
which regard the happiness of all, general well-being, as 
the end, 



102 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



Of the writers that have maintained the first view, Paley 
may be mentioned, who defines virtue to be " doing good 
Paiey's to man kind in obedience to the will of God, 

doctrine, an( j f Qr sake of everlasting happiness," 
The end of all proper action is one's own highest happi- 
ness. The means by which this end is to be secured is 
doing good to mankind, beneficence ; and the rule by 
which this beneficence is to be regulated is the will of 
God ; because God is infinitely wise, and his will indicates 
the proper mode of action. The difference between the 
good man and the bad, according to Paley, is that one 
seeks everlasting happiness, the other happiness in this life. 

A slight modification of the doctrine is presented by 
Dr. N. W. Taylor, who says : " Intelligent voluntary beings 
never act voluntarily without acting from a re- 

Taylor's view. . A 

gard to their own well-being. Again, " There 
can no more be motive except in the form of good or 
happiness to the agent, than there can be motive which 
is not motive." And again, " There can be no tendency 
to moral action, in a moral being, except ultimately to 
obtain happiness by acting ; and the greater the happiness 
known by the agent to depend on one kind of moral action, 
the greater the tendency to that action." To the same 
effect, but even more emphatically, his pupil, Mr. Metcalf, 
says : " It is a law imposed by an invincible necessity of 
his nature upon every rational, sentient, voluntary being, 
that in all his voluntary action he must seek happiness. 
To escape from the dominion of this law is an absolute 
impossibility." These same writers teach that the true 
Motive to motive to benevolence, or doing good to 
benevolence, others, is in the perceived adaptation of the 
action to promote the happiness of the agent. Says Dr. 
Taylor: "Were the agent wholly unsusceptible to happi- 



THEORIES OF OBLIGATION. 



I03 



ness from the happiness of others, and as, therefore, he 
must be wholly indifferent to their happiness, he must be 
wholly indifferent to benevolence on his own part, as the 
means of their happiness." Metcalf maintains that the 
happiness of others is the objective end in benevolence — 
that which awakens desire; but that the satisfaction of 
that desire, or the happiness of the agent, is the subjective 
end, in fact the only final motive. The happiness of others 
is sought, because it is the means of highest satisfaction to 
self. In his view, it is benevolence to regard the good 
of others as the greatest good to self, and to view of 
pursue it for that reason. In his own words : benevolence. 
" The holiness of a holy being consists in seeking and find- 
ing his happiness in loving and serving and pleasing God, 
in contemplating and promoting the highest happiness, and 
of course the highest holiness, of all the subjects of his 
moral government." "This instinctive, innate, irresistible 
yearning after good is the ultimate reason, the last reason 
that can be given, for holy action." "The last subjective 
reason that can be given for holy action is, that by this 
only can the agent's highest happiness be secured," and the 
subjective reason or motive is " the motive felt in the con- 
sciousness of the mind." Sin is seeking" one's 

1 • • 1 rr-i ? Of sin. 

happiness in the wrong way. " The only pos- 
sible supreme choice which we can make in regard to our 
seeking happiness, is to choose in which of these two 
methods — whether in benevolence or selfishness, in the 
right or wrong — we will seek it ; in other words, to choose 
from what sources we will seek to derive our happiness, 
and on what objects we will place our supreme affections." 
Obligation to benevolence or to any choice, according to 
this theory, is conditioned upon the usefulness of the 
choice, ultimately, and in fact, to ourselves, but immediately 



104 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



in the promotion of the direct object of the benevolence. 
Says Paley : "We can be obliged to nothing but what we 
obligation ourselves are to gain or lose something by." 
and utility. Sayg Dr Xaylor : " All the worth or value of 
man or of any other moral being consists in his capacity 
of happiness, and of that self-active nature which qualifies 
him to produce happiness to other beings and to himself. 
All the worth, or value, or goodness, or excellence which 
pertains to action on the part of a moral being, is its fitness 
or adaptation to produce these results;" and this writer 
seems continually to confound the obligatoriness or Tight- 
ness of an action with its worth, or value, or tendency to 
produce good results. Indeed, he seems to have no other 
conception of obligation. Says Metcalf: "The intent and 
tendency of holy action to promote happiness, is the reason 
why it is, in and of itself, immediately pleasing, agreeable, 
and comely in the sight of God and of all holy beings." 
This view of obligation has given the system the name of 
utilitarianism ; while its view of virtuous action, as, in the 
last analysis, regard for self, self- gratification, has given it 
the name of the selfish system. Among the difficulties 
and errors pertaining to this view of obligation are the 
following : 

The mistake, out of which all the others spring, is the as- 
sumption that desire is the only motive to action. This is a 
Thefunda- prevalent psychological error, and disfigures 
mental error. man y systems of morals and of theology. It is 
true that there can be no motive for action to a being desti- 
tute of sensibility — the susceptibility to good and evil ; be- 
cause to such a being there could be no conception of good, 
or well-being, and hence no idea of obligation, which is the 
logical consequent of the idea of the good. A moral being 
must have a sensibility ; but having received the idea of 



THEORIES OF OBLIGATION. 



I05 



good through the sensibility, that apprehended value be- 
comes a motive for action, whether the good be in himself 
or another. It is true that the good, intellectually appre- 
hended, is calculated to awaken desire — perhaps always 
does ; but the final motive for virtuous action is not the 
desire, but is the value of the good as perceived by the in- 
telligence — not its value to me as related to my desire, but 
its value absolute and in itself. According to the theory 
that desire is the only motive to action, there is no absolute 
good known to us but the good of self. The good of others 
is simply relative — good in that it awakens desire in us, and 
the realization of the good gratifies that desire ; thus it be- 
comes a means of happiness to us. This is not the view a 
rational being has of the good of others. He judges of that 
good in the light of his own experience of good, and knows 
that the good of one like himself is the same as his own 
good, and has an absolute value. It is as obvious as any 
fact of reason that that good is to be respected on its own 
account, for its own value, independently of any desire that 
may be awakened, or may not be. The obligation to re- 
spect or choose it is seen at once, even if there be no desire 
moving to the choice, or if all the desires be against it. 

Thus, in apprehended value there exists a source of mo- 
tive aside from desire of our own happiness, or any other 
desire ; and this is the proper motive to virtuous Destroys 
action. We have, then, two sources of motive freedom, 
to moral beings, and thus, and thus only, is provision made 
for moral freedom. Here, then, is the second objection to 
this system, that it leads logically and inevitably to neces- 
sitated action ; not that its advocates deny the freedom of 
the will : they are among its stanchest defenders. But if 
there be no possible motive but desire, there can be no free- 
dom. Is it maintained that the freedom lies in choosing 



io6 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



between the desires, and gratifying this or that, at will? 
But there must be a motive to this choice, and that motive 
must be some difference in the desires themselves, or some 
other desire that lies back of the choice. If the motive be 
in this third desire moving to the choice, there is no free- 
dom ; for there is no power to get back of the desire and 
modify it. If the motive for choice be merely a difference 
in the strength of the desires, then the strongest desire will 
control. If it be any other difference that determines the 
choice, it is a difference that appeals to the intelligence, as. 
for example, the propriety or profitableness of the gratifi- 
cation of one desire rather than another, and thus we have 
at once a motive for action aside from the desire. Some 
such ground of action there must be, or there is no escape 
from the domination of the strongest desire, or rather from 
the resultant of the desires. And such a ground of action 
there is in the consciousness of every man, so that he de- 
nies one desire and gratifies another, or denies both, all in 
obedience to his convictions of interest, or propriety, or 
duty. This difficulty pertains to the psychology of the 
system rather than its morality, and is by no means pe- 
culiar to the upholders of this theory. 

An error, more strictly ethical, is in the character which 
the system ascribes to benevolence ; and here the appeal 
must be to the conscious knowledge of every 

Corrupts o •> 

benevolence. man Benevolence does not consist in doing 
good to mankind for the sake of everlasting happiness, or 
for the gratification of desire, near or remote, or for the 
sake of anything whatever, except the value of the good 
of mankind in itself. We feel and know that benevolence 
is vitiated when it looks, for a motive, beyond the good 
itself, to some satisfaction to be derived from the action. 
We call such action prudence or shrewdness, not benevo- 



THEORIES OF OBLIGATION. 



lence. It is true, beyond doubt, that there is such satisfac- 
tion to be derived from benevolence — a satisfaction higher 
than any other; but when that satisfaction is the end or 
motive, it fails at once, because benevolence has failed. 
" He that saveth his life shall lose it." Benevolence is 
choosing the good of mankind, and of all sentient beings, 
because of the value of their well-being, and the resulting 
satisfaction springs from the disinterested action. 

The good man, laboring zealously in a good cause, is not 
actuated by desires terminating finally on himself. He is 
not pursuing his own happiness as the sole mo- Mistakes mo _ 
tive. This is not the reason for his action. He good°and e the 
puts his happiness in with the common interest, bad ' 
where it belongs, and finds it safe in the end. Still less is 
the bad man, in yielding to his desires and passions, pur- 
suing his own happiness or interest, in any proper sense. 
Sinful action does not even involve the delusion or thought 
of pursuing one's own good. The theory, then, fails to ex- 
plain the principle of action in the case of both the virtuous 
and the sinful. To yield to the control of desire is not to 
pursue happiness. 

The theory fails to furnish ground for the difference 
between the good and the bad. It makes the subjective 
motive the same in both — desire of happiness. Provides for 
They differ only in the means they use. But no difference - 
in the pursuit of an end, every man uses the means which 
commend themselves to his judgment, and can use no 
other; else he surrenders his end. The difference between 
the virtuous and the sinful, then, must be merely a differ- 
ence of judgment, and sin is a mistake. The true difference 
is that the good man follows his convictions, and chooses 
the good of all ; the bad man follows his desires, and neg- 
lects the good of all. 



io8 



MORAL SCIEN'CE. 



The theory could never suggest the language of Script- 
ure, nor be suggested by it: " If any man will come after 
Does not meet me > ^ et ^ m deny himself and take up his cross 
scripture. anc j f 0 n ow me For whosoever will save his 
life shall lose it ; and whosoever will lose his life for my 
sake shall find it." " If any man come to me and hate not 
his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and breth- 
ren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my 
disciple. So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsak- 
eth not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." 

The theory is wrong in making the utility of benevolence 
a condition of its obligatoriness. Benevolence is seen to be 
Mistakes obligatory at once upon the apprehension of 

relation of , . " . , . 

utility. the good, without any thought or consideration 

of the question whether the benevolence will promote the 
good. Benevolence is a state of will favorable to the good, 
regardful of it ; it is not a purpose to promote it. Such a 
purpose will spring from benevolence, when it is ascertained 
that anything can be done to promote it. But antecedently 
to all such thought or information, the obligation to choose 
the good because of its value is clearly seen. This choice 
puts one in the attitude to promote the good, a readiness 
for the work; but it precedes all purpose. Such is the 
primary, benevolent choice ; and the obligation to it is 
grounded in the perceived value of the good, not in any 
tendency in the action whatever, either to promote the 
good of the agent or of any other being. On the contrary", 
if there were positive knowledge, on the part of the agent, 
that his benevolence would yield no result, the obligation 
to choose the good would still subsist in full force. Indeed, 
if he positively knew that his benevolence would do harm 
instead of good, and should attempt to withhold his be- 
nevolence, this very act would still imply benevolence. Of 



THEORIES OF OBLIGATION. 



IO9 



course there is an absurdity in the refusal to be benevolent 
for such a reason ; but the supposition shows that the obli- 
gation is independent of tendency. Any purpose to do 
good, or any executive action whatever, could be restrained 
for such a reason ; but the primary attitude of benevolence 
would still remain, implied in the very withholding of the 
purpose. Hence, benevolence, in its fundamental form, lies 
back of any executive purpose whatsoever. It is the vol- 
untary attitude out of which good purposes grow, whenever 
they are seen to be proper. 

And here we mark a distinction beteen the ultimate be- 
nevolent choice, and all executive acts and purposes which 
spring from it, in the fact that obligation to be- utility as re- 

. i'i lated to exec- 

nevolence arises immediately upon the percep- utive action, 
tion of good, while the obligation to form purposes and put 
forth executive acts does not arise until it is ascertained 
that such purpose or act will probably or possibly be use- 
ful. The obligation to executive action is conditioned upon 
perceived useful tendency ; the obligation to benevolence 
is independent of tendency. We are bound to be benevo- 
lent toward Sir John Franklin, lost in the Arctic seas ; we 
are not bound to form any purpose, or put forth any act, 
until we perceive a tendency in the purpose or act to help 
him. 

This distinction leads to a remark upon a misapplication 
of the term utilitarianism. All good is to be chosen and 
pursued; and this choice of good is benevo- The term 

. . . utilitarianism 

lence, which alone is virtuous action. Many misapplied, 
writers have failed to distinguish this view from the selfish 
theory, and have applied to both the term utilitarianism, 
which is no more applicable to the true doctrine of benev- 
olence, than to the transcendental views of Zeno or of Kant. 
It is true that some of the advocates of the doctrine of be- 



I IO 



MORAL SCIENXE. 



nevolence, as comprehending all virtue, have, by their want 
of discrimination, exposed themselves to the charge of util- 
occasionfor itarianism, and have even accepted the title as 

the misappre- . 

hension. appropriate to the doctrine. Thus the younger 
Edwards, who maintained the true doctrine of benevolence, 
as set forth by his father, asks, " What is the primary reason 
that it is my duty to love my fellow-men?" and after 
considering, with great discrimination, the various answers 
given to the question, presents his own view thus : " I am 
obligated to love my fellow-men, because that love tends 
to their happiness, and to the happiness of the intellectual 
system." He fails to discern that the love of which he 
speaks is not primary benevolence, but that course of ac- 
tion which follows it, the obligation to which does depend 
upon the tendency of the action. This is clear from his 
next sentence : " But if love and attachment to an individ- 
ual, in any case, as to a murderer, whose life and prosperity 
are inconsistent with general happiness, tend to impair the 
general happiness, I am not bound in that case to love 
him." How could so discerning a man deny the duty of 
benevolence toward a murderer or any other being? He 
failed to apprehend the real nature of benevolence, as a 
disposition of mind lying back of all purpose to do good, 
and of all executive action. That antecedent benevolent 
disposition is as really obligatory toward a murderer as 
toward a saint ; and is exercised in the effort to inflict 
the penalties due to him, as truly as in showing mercy. 
No consideration of tendency or of usefulness ever enters 
into the original perception of the obligation of benev- 
olence. It does enter into the estimate of the obliga- 
tion of even* subordinate act. I am to be benevolent 
toward, or to love, my neighbor, because his good is an 
absolute value, and therefore I see that it ought to be 



THEORIES OF OBLIGATION. 



regarded in the heart ; I must pursue this or that course 
of action because it is useful, or tends to promote the good. 
This distinction is clearly in our consciousness, and, properly 
considered, would save from confounding the true doctrine 
of benevolence with utilitarianism. 

A modification of the idea that happiness is the sole 
good, and that obligation is seen only in the light of this 
good, represents that simple happiness is not combination 

of holiness and 

the true good, but the happiness which results happiness, 
from virtue, or " holy happiness," as President Hopkins 
calls it. This is an attempt to blend the two distinct ideas 
of virtue and happiness into one compound which shall dif- 
fer from both components. But they are still distinct. The 
good man is both virtuous and happy, and his happiness 
results greatly from his virtue ; but the virtue is in the action 
of his will, and the happiness is a condition of his sensibility. 
The two things are so utterly unlike, that if one is ultimate 
good, the other is not. Both are ultimate in a very impor- 
tant sense, but in different directions. Happiness is ultimate 
as good, benevolence is ultimate as obligation. The test 
of the kind of happiness which we are to pursue Kind of happi- 

, , •. . „ ness to be 

or promote, is found m its relation to well- sought, 
being. Intense pleasurable emotions, from whatever source, 
are of small account. They are necessarily brief, and can 
have little relation to permanent well-being. If the ec- 
static joy of " a saint" is to be preferred to the fleeting 
enjoyment of the sinner — and it is — it is because the one is 
in harmony with well-being, and the other is subversive of 
it. The question, What form of enjoyment is best? can 
never be of essential importance. The life we must choose 
is the life of benevolence, in regard to which there is no 
room for doubt. Our only anxiety for our neighbors is 
that they may live the same life ; thus their happiness will 



I 12 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



be secure, and the only practical question is one of funda- 
mental duty, not of different kinds of happiness. 

A superficial study of Spencer's " Data of Ethics " might 
suggest a classification of his views with those of Paley and 
Spencer's tne so-called utilitarian school. He makes hap- 
" Ethics." piness, satisfaction, pleasure, the only ultimate 
good ; and in the instinctive appetency for this good he 
finds the only motive of action. But when we look for a 
proper basis of the ideas of obligation, of moral right and 
wrong, of praiseworthiness and blameworthiness, as these 
exist among men, we do not find it. These words are use'd 
more or less freely, but their essential significance has dis- 
appeared. All that we know of a moral agent, of our self, 
the personal being with whom we have to do, is merely the 
aggregate or succession of sensations, impressions, feelings, 
which appear in consciousness. For a responsible personal 
being endowed with reason and will, who perceives duty, 
and determines for himself its performance or non-perform- 
ance, the philosophy of evolution, as represented by Mr. 
Spencer, makes no provision. The man is a bundle of sen- 
sations, resulting by development and differentiation, under 
the law of necessary causation, from some remote origin, 
plant or polyp, and becoming, through the unending strug- 
gle for life, the complex bundle of experiences which con- 
stitute him. His entire character is the necessary result of 
this blind process of evolution. He could no more be other 
than he is than a passing cloud could have a different shape 
and movement under the forces which have determined its 
form and motion. Continuance of life is man's only prin- 
ciple of action, or reason for being, individually and collect- 
ively, and with all this he has responsibly nothing more to 
do than the cloud in the sky. The dissolution of the nerv- 
ous system in which the experience or consciousness called 



THEORIES OF OBLIGATION. 



113 



man is centered, is the end of the individual man. He may 
leave a posterity to take his place, but his successor is no 
more significant than himself — possibly a little more fully 
developed or differentiated. Mr. Spencer treats of ethics 
as the laws of conduct pertaining to such a being ; but all 
truly moral ideas and conceptions are as far removed from 
his science as from chemistry or biology. Indeed, he finds 
no difficulty in seeing the beginnings of morality in lower 
animal life. The egoism and the altruism which he regards 
as different sides of the moral instinct, are the same in the 
man as in the brute ; and in both cases are but nervous 
impulses which prompt to action. In such action there is 
nothing left of morality but the name. 



CHAPTER XL 



THEORIES OF OBLIGATION. 

We will next consider some of the theories which find 
the ground of obligation in a standard, or principle, or fact, 
of right as °f ultimate right — this right itself having no 
ultimate. foundation, and needing none. Back of this 
right, our reason cannot go. The theories are various, and 
have little in common, except this fact of an ultimate ground 
of right, or law of duty, which is different in the different 
theories. 

A popular notion of the foundation of obligation or duty 
is, that it originates in the will of God — that his command 
win of God renders one thing right, another wrong, and that 

the origin of . . 

duty. there is no other known reason for the Tightness 

or the wrongness ; that the will of God does not merely in- 
dicate or reveal the right, but constitutes it. This view of 
the origin of morality is not maintained distinctly by any 
large proportion of ethical writers, but is held in a popular 
way by large numbers who have not been accustomed to 
analytical thought upon such questions. With some limita- 
tions and modifications, it is maintained by Paley, War r 
burton, Richard Watson, Dymond, Chalmers, Mansel, and 
others. 

Among the modified forms of the doctrine is the view 
of Warburton, and perhaps of Mansel, that there may be a 
distinction, in the nature of things, between right and 
wrong, which is appreciable in thought, yet it carries no 

114 



THEORIES OF OBLIGATION. 



115 



force with it as law. There is no obligation, or thought of 
it, except as imposed by God's command. Still another 
modification of the theory is, that obligation Modification 
has its origin, not in the will of God, but in his ofthetheor y- 
infinite and perfect nature, or in his reason ; that it is 
the province of infinite reason to originate principles, and 
not the province of will. 

The general argument by which the theory is sustained 
is this, that obligation or duty implies a law, and a law im- 
plies a lawgiver, and this lawgiver must be God. Mode of 
The same argument is often used to prove the argument, 
being of God, from the acknowledged fact of obligation, 
even by writers who do not refer the origin of obligation 
to the will or nature of God. 

The apparent force of the argument lies in the ambiguity 
of the word law. One use of the word is to express a fact 
or principle, or order of events, or a certain de- 
pendence and relation of things, without refer- 
ence to any origin whatever. Thus we speak of the law 
of gravitation, the law of the binomial series, the law of 
obligation ; and it never occurs to us that we imply a be- 
ginning of the law, or a lawgiver, in using the expression. 
There is no such significance in the word as thus used. 
It is only when we speak of law as a statute, an enact- 
ment by some legitimate authority, a part of the machinery 
of moral government, that it implies a lawgiver. The ar- 
gument derives its apparent force from the transfer of this 
sense of the word to the other case, where it has no proper 
application. 

Another form of the argument is that obligation implies 
an obliger; but this does not correspond with our con- 
sciousness. We affirm obligation without any thought or 
knowledge of one who imposes the obligation. It is doubt- 



Ii6 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



less true that the fact that duties are indorsed and enforced 
by the divine command greatly adds to their force and 
authority with us ; but without any knowledge 

Another form. etc i* -n 

of such a fact, obligation still exists, and is rec- 
ognized. The knowledge of God, and of his law, adds the 
sense of accountability to that of obligation, and gives 
vitality and power to duty ; but this should not be mis- 
taken for the origin of obligation. 

Among the obvious difficulties of the theory are the 
following : 

It fails to afford a foundation that satisfies our thought. 
A reason can be asked and given, why we ought to obey 
Not the God ; and the attempt to rest upon his com- 

ultimate . 

reason. mand as ultimate is vain. Before we are aware, 

we find ourselves affirming that God's will is right, that his 
law is '' holy and just and good," that he is infinitely wise 
and good, and therefore his command must be right, and 
ought to be obeyed. All this shows that we have in our 
thought something back of the mere will, upon which we 
depend. If God's will were ultimate, we could ask no 
reason, and offer none, why we should obey him. 

We know that love to our neighbor would be duty, even 
if God should not require it ; and in reference to many 
Benevolence particular duties, we perceive first that they 
itseff at ° ry m are duties, and then infer that God requires 
them. If duty originated in his will, the order would 
always be reversed. If two beings like ourselves should 
exist alone in the universe, we can see that they would be 
bound to respect each other's interests. God does not cre- 
ate or originate the principle of obligation. He creates 
moral beings, and by their very nature they come under 
the law of obligation. He does not create space, but he 
uses it in the disposition of the material universe. He does 



THEORIES OF OBLIGATION. 



117 



not create geometry, but he " geometrizes " — nor morality, 
but he establishes and maintains his government in accord- 
ance with its principles. It is no part of the honor due to 
God, to attribute to him impossibilities. 

We speak of the goodness of God and believe in it. We 
have an idea of moral character in him, and regard that 
character as the perfection of virtue. All this No basis for 

. . God's good- 

WOuld be impossible to our thought — mcon- ness. 

ceivable, if we did not look beyond his will for the right. 
We could have no conception of his moral character, and 
he could have no such character. Our idea of goodness in 
him shows that we have a standard of goodness outside of 
his will. God is holy, virtuous, because he is benevolent; 
he meets obligation. As a moral being he comes under the 
great law of duty. He is not under authority or govern- 
ment, still he conforms to the law of obligation, and thus is 
the object of our moral approbation. 

But here the modern believers in " the relativity of hu- 
man knowledge " meet us with the objection that we know 
morality, duty, obligation, only for ourselves ; Re iativit y of 
that the law of obligation, as we know it, is rel- morallt y- 
ative, is obligation for us ; of God we can make no affirma- 
tion of duty. Says Mansel : " The fiction of an absolute 
law binding on all rational beings has only an apparent 
universality, because we can only conceive other rational 
beings by identifying their constitution with our own, and 
making human reason the measure and representative of 
reason in general." A writer in the Princeton Review 
makes a practical application of this principle of relative 
morality. " The perennial fact in human judgment, that 
God's moral administration of this world has always seemed 
to human reason less perfect in justice than the moral 
standard which man sets up in each age as the criterion of 



u8 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



moral conduct, seems conclusive that the finite moral con- 
ceptions of man furnish no adequate type of the rule of 
God's conduct, whose ways are not as our ways, in his 
eternal administration over the life of man." If these 
views were correct, then our thought of God's goodness 
would be but a fancy with which we amuse ourselves, the 
reality of which is utterly beyond our knowledge. The 
principles of morality rest upon the same foundation as 
those of mathematics, and all necessary truth. They are 
absolute truths — true to us and to all rational beings. It 
is the nature of the truths in themselves, and not the nature 
of the faculties by which we apprehend them, that gives 
them their authority. 

The whole tenor of Scripture corresponds with this view. 
It is always assumed that men have faculties to judge of 
correspond- God's character, and he submits to be judged 

ence with .... 

Scripture. upon the common principles of morality. 

Some prefer the statement that the principle of obli- 
gation has its origin in the nature or the reason of God. 
origin in the The truth unquestionably involved in the 

reason or ....... 

nature of God. statement is that the principle exists as an 
eternal apprehension in the divine reason. To affirm 
that this divine apprehension is the origin of the principle 
is a confusion of thought. We know what is eternally in 
the reason of God by knowing what is necessarily and for- 
ever true. 

A few ethical writers find the standard of action, that 
upon which obligation turns, in one's own worthiness; and 
ofworthi- all questions of duty are, according to this 
ultimate. view, to be referred to the bearing of the 
action on our worthiness of approbation, or of happiness. 

Dr. Hickok, in his " Moral Science," presents this theory, 
making " the highest good, the summum bouum, worthiness 



THEORIES OF OBLIGATION. 



HQ 



of spiritual approbation." "Every man has consciously the 
bond upon him to do that, and that only, which is due to his 
spiritual excellency." "Every virtue finds Hickok's 
here its end. Why he should be benevolent view ' 
toward man, and why reverent toward God, have each the 
same end — namely, then, and then only, is he acting ac- 
cording to that which is due to his spirit, and thus worthy 
of spiritual approbation." " Everywhere, in acting for 
spiritual worthiness' sake, I shall be fulfilling what I intui- 
tively see to be the end of my spiritual being." The rules 
for action, according to this theory, are " the imperatives 
of the spirit's own excellency"; implying a faculty by 
which we discern directly, in every question of duty, what 
is consistent with our own worthiness. 

The term worthiness, as thus employed, seems ambigu- 
ous. Spiritual worthiness suggests naturally the idea of 
moral worthiness — the worthiness which results 

Ambiguity. 

from the fulfillment of obligation. But with 
this definition the obligation must precede the worthiness 
and be determined independently of it. But the question 
which the theory proposes to answer is, How does obligation 
arise ? The worthiness intended must precede logically the 
obligation, and furnish the light in which the obligation is 
seen. It must be therefore a natural worthiness, an excel- 
lence of being which belongs to the man, in his own nature, 
independently of any action. The implication of the theo- 
ry, then, is that we shall find duty in considering what 
action is in harmony with our exalted nature, and thus the 
primal obligation is to respect our own personal being in its 
highest elements, to act worthily of our nature. Thus the 
rules of duty become, as Dr. Hickok says, the imperatives 
of the spirit's own excellency. 

Janet, in his "Theory of Morals," states the view more 



120 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



luminously, essentially as follows: Moral good, which is 
righteousness, presupposes a natural good, which must be 
regarded for its own sake. This summum bo- 

Janet's view. . 

num, or ultimate natural good, is our own per- 
sonality, the excellency which belongs to us as possessing a 
rational moral nature. All duty is derived from the obliga- 
tion to respect this exalted nature. To act in harmony with 
our personal natural perfection is the fundamental obliga- 
tion. From this, then, should be derived all duties to God 
and to our fellow-creatures. We are to love God and our 
neighbor because our own personal perfection requires it. 
Janet himself shrinks from this natural and necessary re- 
sult. He accepts the principle as explaining the origin of 
our duties to the lower animals. We must abstain from 
cruelty to brutes, because a due regard to our own nature 
requires it. But he says we must regard God and our 
fellow-men for their own sake. Our nature requires that 
we regard them on their own account. He reaches thus 
a manifest truth, but at the expense of his principle, that 
the only object of ultimate regard is our own personal 
being. He admits that every being having a nature like 
that of God or man ought to be respected on his own 
account. Then respect for our own nature is not the 
source of all duty. 

President Seelye y in expanding the thought of Dr. Hick- 
ok, finds the Reason to be the highest attribute of personal 
President being, and the source of all authority in obli- 
seeiye's view. g a j-j on The ft rs j- principle in duty is that we 
must act reasonably. The excellence of reason, and its 
authority, are intuitively perceived. Obedience to reason 
is, therefore, the fundamental duty ; and particular duties 
arise from special demands of the reason. 

There can be no question that the reason is the faculty 



THEORIES OF OBLIGATION. 



121 



by which we perceive the primal or fundamental duty ; but 
that we have any direct or original perception of the pre- 
eminence or authority of reason, is not clear. The primary 
suggestion of obligation we find, not in the nature of the 
reason as a faculty, but in the nature of the truths or facts 
presented by the reason. In the presence of apprehended 
well-being the reason affirms the obligation to respect it as 
a good. The obligation is directed toward, and terminates 
upon, the apprehended good in the form of well-being. It 
is not the reason which we are required to respect, but the 
good, which in the light of the reason we see must be re- 
garded on its own account. We act reasonably when we 
respect this natural good, which is general well-being. 

But the fundamental conception of making any personal 
perfection the object of ultimate regard seems false both 
philosophically and ethically. If moral perfec- Perfection 
tion be embraced in the thought, this can only not the end - 
be righteousness or conformity to obligation. Righteous- 
ness is unquestionably the highest personal perfection at- 
tainable or conceivable. But this righteousness is itself 
action, in the sense of a voluntary regard for the final good 
— that from which the obligation springs. Then the right- 
eous action must terminate on itself, a condition impossible 
in thought and in fact. Janet distinctly discards the idea 
as impossible, and makes the perfection to be aimed at the 
highest natural condition of the personal being, our self. 
The theory does not permit us to include the perfection of 
our neighbor, except as it is a condition of our own perfec- 
tion. Thus he says, " Hence all my duties may be ulti- 
mately resolved into that of perfecting myself." This is 
the essential principle of the theory of personal perfection 
as ultimate ; but even Janet, as we have seen, shrinks from 
a consistent application of the principle, when he faces the 



122 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



duties we owe to God and to our fellow-men. The appli- 
cation to the case of brutes is equally false, but not so 
shocking. 

The ethical error involved in the theory is essentially the 
same as in that which makes our own happiness supreme. 

My own perfection is no more valuable or 

Ethical error. * 

worthy of regard than that of my neighbor, 
whether that perfection be natural or moral, or a combina- 
tion of both. We have no more right to make even our 
own righteousness or holiness the supreme object of regard, 
or pursuit, than we have to make our own happiness su- 
preme. Holiness, pursued as an end, is just as certain to 
escape us as happiness. The pursuit is an illusion, and the 
attainment, in both cases, is but a shadow. 

The ambiguous use of the word good is the occasion of 
confusion in many treatises on ethics. The word is used 
in two entirely distinct senses, as we have seen. 

Natural good. . . . 

In one sense natural good is intended, including 
all possible well-being or satisfaction, which is absolute 
good, and all things which tend to promote satisfaction, 
which men call their goods — relatively good because they 
contribute to well-being, which is the absolute good. 

The word good is also used in a moral sense, to mean 
righteousness or conformity to obligation. Thus an action 
is called good when it fulfills duty. That it is 

Moral good. ... 

also useful, would make it a natural, relative 
good ; but this quality is not intended when we pronounce 
an action morally good. We also apply the term good to 
character, to indicate its conformity to obligation, its moral 
rightness or righteousness. The usefulness of such a char- 
acter is a different fact, not expressed in the word good as 
indicating its moral quality. A good man is one who meets 
obligation, in the purpose or choice of his life. Whether 



THEORIES OF OBLIGATION. 



123 



he is useful or not will depend upon the opportunities 
afforded, the conditions under which his goodness is exer- 
cised. But in every condition he is the same good man. 

It has sometimes been maintained that virtue consists in 
the choice of good in either of these two forms. The choice 
of natural good is virtue, in the form of benev- Ambiguous 
olence. But benevolence, it is said, is itself a use ' 
good, a higher good than well-being, which is its object, and 
thus it may become itself the object of choice or virtuous 
regard. Thus, it is claimed, there springs up a new grade 
of virtue, having benevolence for its object — a higher virtue, 
because benevolence is a higher good than well-being or 
happiness. 

Such a conception transcends experience. To make 
benevolence, which is itself a choice, the object of another 
virtuous choice, apart from the being to whom the benevo- 
lent choice belongs, is too far removed from reality to require 
consideration. Virtuousness cannot be chosen or regarded 
for its own sake. It must be regarded for the sake of the 
well-being of which it is a condition. Virtuous choice must 
always, and ultimately, terminate on being. We always 
choose the virtue for the sake of the being. 

It is sometimes represented that the moral approval of 
virtue, involving the complacency with which we contem- 
plate virtuous character and virtuous acts, is this Love of 
higher form of virtue, of which benevolence, com P lacenc y- 
instead of well-being, is the object. A more careful anal- 
ysis would show that what we call complacency, and which 
involves intellectual and emotional activity, is not properly 
a moral exercise, and is not even an indication of the moral 
character of its subject. It is a natural, irresponsible rec- 
ognition, on the part of a moral being, of the excellence 
of virtue. What is called, then, the love of complacency, as 



124 



mural science. 



a distinct form of virtue, is but benevolence exercised to- 
ward a virtuous being, and colored by the intellectual and 
emotional experiences which arise in the contemplation of 
a virtuous character. It would contribute to clearness of 
thought and expression to call well-being good, and virtue 
right. The two are utterly distinct — different in kind, and 
admit of no comparison as to degree or value. Virtue is 
an activity, an attitude of the will, while well-being is an 
experience found ultimately in the sensibility. 

Those who hold to an ultimate, absolute, right find the 
foundation of obligation in the nature of things, and find 
Abstract also in man moral reason, a faculty by which 

right as . . . 

ultimate. the nature of things is perceived with reference 
to obligation. They hold that action in accordance with 
the nature of things is seen to be right and obligatory, and 
that no reason for the Tightness can be given beyond the 
fact that it is, and is seen to be ; that this rightness of the 
action is the reason for its obligatoriness, and the chief mo- 
tive for its performance. The theory maintains that obli- 
gation is apprehended in reference to a variety of objects, 
and in connection with many different relations of the moral 
agent, and thus we have a variety of virtuous courses or 
actions, independent of each other, and having nothing in 
common except the fact that they are in accordance with 
the nature of things ; thus the good of being ought to be 
chosen, truth ought to be respected, gratitude toward a 
benefactor ought to be exercised, virtue ought to be loved 
and rewarded, crime ought to be detested and punished, 
an honest man trusted, the parent honored and obeyed by 
the child, the child protected and guarded by the parent, 
God reverenced and honored by his creatures, and so 
through all the different natural relations. In each partic- 



THEORIES OF OBLIGATION. 



125 



ular case the duty rests on a special foundation, something 
in the nature of the case, and is seen directly in its own 
light. The view is, that we are not left in general to in- 
quire into the tendency and probable results of the action, 
but duty is seen at once without reference to consequences. 
The maxim of the theory is, " Do right for the Maxim and 

• • • axiom of the 

sake of the right, and its fundamental axiom theory, 
is, that everything ought to be treated according to its 
nature. This view is maintained, with special forms of 
statement, by the great majority of writers on morals, and 
is perhaps the prevalent doctrine of the Christian world. 
After what has already been said, only a few suggestions 
need be offered. 

The fundamental axiom is true in a special sense. Good, 
well-being, ought to be treated according to its nature. But 
in the whole range of thought or experience, Axiom 
there is no other object which suggests the examined, 
thought of obligation as to its treatment. No other object 
has a nature calling for any special treatment. Natural 
good, happiness, must be respected because of its nature. 
But we can stand face to face with truth, and beauty, and 
intellect, and will, and body, and space, and time, and eter- 
nity, without the thought of obligation, until sentient being, 
with its capacities and wants, comes before us. There is 
nothing in the nature of anything else to call for any action 
whatever, except as it comes into relation with sentient 
being. The good of being is seen to be fit to be regarded 
on its own account, and in the light of it we perceive obli- 
gation, and understand the nature of virtuous action. It 
is often claimed that virtue itself, as well as natural good, is 
to be chosen for its own sake ; but such a claim overlooks 
the fact that virtue is itself the choice or action which the 



126 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



presence or apprehension of the natural good or well-being 
requires, and cannot be the foundation of the obligation to 
the action. 

The particular duties of gratitude, veracity, reverence, 
confidence, justice, mercy, and the like, as we have seen, 
Special are n °t so manv independent forms of virtue, 

rfommSr each with its special foundation in the nature 
foundation. Q £ t h m g Sj t } le y are mer ely the forms which 

benevolent action takes in different relations, and modified 
by different intellectual and emotional elements. 

Primary duty is seen directly, as the theory claims, with- 
out any inquiry as to consequences or tendencies ; but the 
Are not seen only duty thus seen is the all-comprehensive 

independ- 

entiy. duty of benevolence. This in fact is the only 

duty that exists, the only absolute, ultimate, right ; but the 
various directions which benevolent action should take, 
all subordinate duties, are determined by a knowledge of 
tendencies and probable results. Such knowledge is our 
only guide to practical duty. 

There is, in the theory, no provision for that unity of 
virtue which the Scriptures recognize. Benevolence, or the 
No unity l° ve wmc h is the fulfilling of the law, is only 
of virtue. Qne amori g a multitude of independent obliga- 
tions, and is the only one to which the term love is appro- 
priate. If the theory in this respect be true, the Scripture 
statement given in so many different forms, can be received 
only as a figure of speech. 

The final or grand motive for action is not the rightness 
of the action, but is the value of the good in view of which 
obligation is perceived. Rightness is a quality 

Final motive. . 

of the action ; but the final motive for action 
is in the nature of the object contemplated, which suggests 
obligation ; and that is the value of the good. 



THEORIES OF OBLIGATION. 



127 



The proper maxim for action is not, Do right for the 
sake of the right, but, Choose good and do good for the 
sake of the good. The right is a mere rela- M axim 
tion, an abstraction, for the sake of which noth- examined, 
ing can be done ; the good is a living, breathing interest 
addressing itself to every power and susceptibility of our 
nature, for the sake of which it is possible and right to live 
and to do. The first of these maxims leads to fanaticism. 
It conveys the impression that there is a righteousness 
which is above respect to particular and, perhaps, minute 
interests — that has its eye on a right which is a sure guide, 
forever the same, unmodified by changing circumstances 
and contingencies. The man who adopts the maxim is 
wont to appeal to the eternal principles of rectitude in 
justification of his questionable course, and exhorts others 
to " do right if the heavens fall," careful to allay their mis- 
givings, however, with the assurance that the heavens will 
not fall. The other maxim tends to secure a just respect 
for all interests, and makes the careful, considerate man, 
for whose benevolent regard no being, or good, is too low 
or too high. 

But what is meant by " acting from principle " ? Are 
there not fixed principles of action, which are to be our 
guide, forever right and subject to no contin- Acting from 
gencies? Yes, the principle of benevolence is principle, 
such a principle ; and out of that springs the principle of 
obedience to the will of God — a duty as unchangeable as 
the duty of benevolence and the divine nature. Where the 
will of God is specifically expressed, there is no room for 
inquiring, except to ascertain that will. But in general, the 
expression of his will is in terms as broad as the duty of 
benevolence — love to God and man ; and we are left to 
judge, in the midst of multiform interests, what course be- 



128 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



nevolence requires. By immediate instincts, by judgment, 
and by experience, we settle certain general rules of con- 
duct, which we call principles, and by which, in general, 
we govern our life. Among these are the duties of respect 
for property and life, of obedience to authority in the fam- 
ily and in the State, of simplicity and truthfulness in com- 
munication with our fellow-men ; but such principles derive 
all their authority from their relation to the duty of benev- 
olence ; and, from time to time, as circumstances change, 
we are obliged to limit or modify the practical principle, in 
obedience to the higher, unchanging, law of benevolence. 
To act thus is to act from principle — the only eternal prin- 
ciple that exists. 

Lastly, the rightness which is supposed to be ultimate in 
thought and in fact, is not ultimate. Rightness is conform- 
Rightness not ity to l aw > an d tne ^ aw 1S the perceived obliga- 
uitimate. tion, and obligation arises only in the presence 
of the good. The good is thus the foundation of the right. 
We always ask, and give, a reason for the rightness of an 
action ; and that ever- recurring reason is, the value of 
the good of being, and the bearing of the action upon that 
good. 

In concluding this brief discussion of the foundation of 
obligation, it may be remarked that the theory of benevo- 
incidentai lence, as comprehending all virtue, and hav- 
advantage. ^ g f oun< 5 a tion in the immutable nature of 

things, has this to recommend it, in addition to its intrinsic 
reasonableness, that it combines the leading ideas of the 
two great classes of philosophers. It accepts the doctrine 
of the utilitarians, that all ultimate good is in the satisfac- 
tion of sentient being; that is, all good which is an object 
of ultimate regard or choice. At the same time it holds, 
with all classes of anti : utilitarians, that the foundation of 



THEORIES OF OBLIGATION. 



129 



obligation is in the nature of things, and that virtuous 
action is obligatory, independently of all tendencies and 
relations. It avoids the errors of the selfish system, which 
corrupts benevolence by presenting desire of happiness as 
the only motive of action ; and of the utilitarian system, 
which, at the best, degrades virtue into the position of a 
mere servant of happiness, having no authority, or excel- 
lence, or worth, except as it tends to promote happiness ; 
while, on the other hand, it presents no cold abstraction 
called right, the measure and the end of virtue, which robs 
it of its warmth and soul The virtue which the theory 
provides for is warm with all living interests, having an ob- 
ject which the soul embraces with perennial sympathy, and 
works for with a strength cheerfully expended, but always 
renewed. It is the love which fulfills the law. 



PART II. 



PRACTICAL ETHICS. 

PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 

THE inquiry in this department of morals pertains to 
obligation, or duty, in particular circumstances and rela- 
Generai tions. The grand primary principle of benev- 

statement. 0 lence is already determined ; • it remains to 
ascertain the outward forms which benevolence assumes in 
the various relations of life. Not that a knowledge of these 
things is a prerequisite to the meeting of obligation. Every 
person in the exercise of the faculties of moral agency is 
able to meet his obligation. He can exercise and maintain 
the benevolent temper of mind, without any knowledge of 
outward or practical duty ; but that benevolent disposition 
at once puts him upon the work of ascertaining outward 
duty, the ways and means of serving God and his fellow- 
men. The pursuit of such knowledge, then, is the neces- 
sary dictate and outgrowth of benevolence, and neglect of 
it is utterly inconsistent with benevolence. In this inquiry 
we are not looking for any standard of abstract right, which 
shall indicate duty in each particular relation. The sole 
principle to guide us is the good of being; and in every 
Knowledge of case tne ^ na ^ inquiry is, What will advance the 
practical duty. general we H-being? Of course, knowledge of 
practical duty must be, to finite beings, contingent, not 
absolute, except where there is an express divine revela- 

130 



PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 



131 



tion, indicating the duty. In many cases the duty is so 
clear as to admit of no doubt ; in others, honest, conscien- 
tious, and intelligent men will differ, and the judgment of 
the Christian world will vary, from age to age. It might 
seem convenient to have more perfect knowledge, but it is 
not necessary to the complete fulfillment of duty. 

" Who does the best his circumstance allows, 
Does well, acts nobly, angels could no more." 

It is necessary that the knowledge of fundamental duty 
should be absolute, and admit of no contingency ; but the 
knowledge of subordinate duty may, in some cases, be dim, 
and uncertain, and varying, without involving any necessary 
failure in moral character. Such, in fact, is our condition 
in this world. Coming to the work with a benevolent 
heart, we are in an attitude most favorable to a knowledge 
of objective duty. 

The subjects of which we propose to treat may be con- 
veniently arranged under the general divisions of Govern- 
ment, and Personal Rights, and Duties; not subjects to be 
that these divisions are perfectly distinct, and dlscussed - 
exclusive each of the other, but they afford such a group- 
ing of topics as will serve our purpose. The field is of 
indefinite extent, and an attempt to cover the whole must 
be vain. 



FIRST DIVISION. 



CHAPTER I. 

GOVERNMENT — ITS NATURE AND FOUNDATION. 

GOVERNMENT is a systematic arrangement for the ex- 
ercise of power and authority over moral beings, to secure 
their conformity to obligation, and thus pro- 
mote the individual and general well-being. In 
every government there are two parties — the person or party 
that governs, called the ruler, or simply the government, 
and those who are governed, called subjects. The author- 
itative expression of duty is called law — sometimes positive 
or objective law, to distinguish it from the great principle 
of obligation which is without beginning, which may be ( 
called absolute law, and from apprehended duty as affirmed 
in the reason, called subjective law. The motives which 
the government brings to bear in enforcing duty are called 
sanctions. These are of two kinds, rewards, and punish- 
ments or penalties. In general, penalties are most conspicu- 
ous ; the reward of obedience consisting chiefly in the en- 
joyment of the advantages secured by the government. It 
is somewhat common to speak of sanctions as an essential 
part of the law ; and hence, it is often said that a law with- 
out sanctions is no law. It seems more simple to regard 
the mere authoritative expression of duty as law, and sanc- 
tions as a part of the necessary machinery of government, 
without which it is not effective. 

132 



GOVERNMENT — ITS NATURE AND FOUNDATION. 1 33 



The proper end of government is the promotion of the 
good of all concerned in it, by securing, to a greater or less 
extent, conformity to obligation. It exists not ob j ect of 
for the pleasure or benefit of the governing g° vernment - 
party alone, but chiefly for the advantage of the subjects 
of the government — really for all. 

In its adaptation to secure these interests, we find the 
right of a government to exist. Finite beings, coming into 
relations with each other, whether well or ill- Ms right 
disposed, require some regulative authority to to exist- 
provide for the general good, and guard arid limit individual 
interests. This is the simple ground upon which any gov- 
ernment can claim a right to be ; and if this necessity should 
cease, the government ought to terminate. Its further ex- 
istence is an impertinence. No one can have a right to 
govern moral beings simply for his own pleasure or amuse- 
ment. 

Who has the right to govern ? Manifestly, he who pos- 
sesses such qualifications, and occupies such a position, that 
he can best secure the ends of government. The right 
These qualifications extend to moral character, to s° vern - 
and to mental and physical endowments — everything that 
will contribute to one's power as a ruler. Proper position 
involves such conspicuity in the one who affects to rule, 
that the subjects of the government will most naturally 
concede to him the right to govern. 

The duty to govern, in general, accompanies the right. 
The possession of such qualifications is a power for good, 
and the refusal to employ that power is a fail- Duty to 
ure in duty. The power to govern gives the govern, 
right and implies the duty to govern. In the family, the 
parents have not only the right to govern, it is their duty 
as well. The same is true of the teacher in the school, and 



134 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



of the ruler in the State ; neither teacher nor ruler can 
abdicate his authority without a failure in duty. 

There is no fixed and universal method by which the 
ruler is to be designated. He may be indicated by his po- 
Ruier how sition, or by the possession of qualifications so 
designated. pre- eminent as to admit of no challenge. Thus 
parents stand in the family, and the teacher in the school. 
Or, one may have in himself such conscious strength and 
ability as to make it safe for him to assume the govern- 
ment ; as in the case of a skillful navigator on ship-board 
in a storm, in the midst of a disorganized crew, or a well- 
disposed and vigorous man in a group of quarrelsome boys. 
They need to be governed, and he feels competent to the 
task ; he needs no other charter. One may come legiti- 
mately to the government by birth, as in a hereditary mon- 
archy. In such a case, position stands before other quali- 
fications, and is made, by the thought and habits of the 
people, the chief element in the power to govern. 

Among those essentially equal in ability and position, the 
natural mode of designating the ruler is by election. Such 
a designation gives position and power to gov- 

Among equals. . 

ern, and therefore the right. It is only in a 
case of extreme necessity that any qualification whatsoever 
in another will indicate that he should govern, instead of 
the one elected. 

That form of government is legitimate which is best 
adapted to answer the ends of government, under all the 
~ , circumstances of the case. It is not self-evi- 

r orm 01 

government. dent> nor even pro b a ble, that one form of 
government is under all contingencies the best. That 
government is relatively the best which, on the whole, 
best promotes the interests of its subjects ; it may be a 
democracy, a monarchy, limited or absolute, or even a mil- 



GOVERNMENT — ITS NATURE AND FOUNDATION. 1 35 



itary despotism. Whatever, under the circumstances, is 
best, is legitimate, and needs to offer no apology for its 
existence. A change of conditions may make another form 
better. 

The extent to which the authority of a government may 
reach, is to be determined by the wants of the community 
to which it pertains, and by its ability to meet Extent of 
those wants. In general, the right to control authority, 
extends no further than the interests of the subjects de- 
mand. A parent has a right to control his family, to the 
extent of the interests of the family, and no further. Any 
authority beyond this transcends the legitimate scope and 
purpose of government. 

In order to the right of a government to exist, it is not 
necessary that all who are to be its subjects should desire 
it, nor even that any should. It is enough that Right not 
they need the government, and that there is in desire - 
one who can govern to their advantage. It is often a duty 
to do for others what they need to have done, without their 
consent, and even against their will ; as to rescue one who, 
on the point of freezing, chooses to sleep, or to save one 
who purposes suicide. The less the children of a family, 
or the pupils of a school, desire to be governed, the more 
they need it. The right to govern on the one part, implies 
the duty of obedience on the other. The right and the 
duty are correlatives ; each implies the other. 

The principal governments in which we are concerned 
are the Divine government, Civil government, and Family 
government. These are permanent and uni- Leading 
versal ; there are others which are temporary, e° vernments - 
limited in their application, as in the case of associations 
for business, or for literary or religious purposes. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT. 

The divine government embraces as its subjects all finite 
moral beings, and the authority of the government extends 
its con- t0 au " their moral conduct ; hence the govern- 

stitution. ment is, in every sense, universal. The head of 
this government is God, who in his own person exercises 
all the functions of government — legislative, judicial, and 
executive. Thus he is absolute Monarch; no constitution 
limits his authority, and he receives no counsel from his 
subjects in any form. He needs no limitation or counsel, 
either in himself, or for the satisfaction of his subjects. Any 
participation, on the part of finite beings, in the govern- 
ment, would not add to our confidence in the government, 
but would detract from it. 

God assumes the government, not simply because he is 
the Creator, and therefore has a right to do what he will 

what are not n ^ s own - 1 11 a vel T important sense he 

the reasons. 0 wns the universe ; but there is no such owner- 
ship of moral beings possible, as makes it proper to dispose 
of them arbitrarily, without reasonable regard to their good. 
God never claims the right to appoint arbitrarily, without 
due reason, the destiny of his creatures. Nor merely be- 
cause he is good does he claim the right to govern. There 
are other good beings in the universe, but they have no 
such right. Goodness is one of the qualifications, but that 
alone does not confer the right. The duty would exist 

136 



THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT. 



137 



without the goodness ; he would be under obligation to 
become good, and to establish a righteous government. 

God governs the universe because it needs to be gov- 
erned, and because he, and he alone, is perfectly able to 
govern. These two facts would constitute him what are th « 
ruler, even if he were not the Creator. The reasons - 
fact of his being Creator demonstrates his qualifications — 
reveals him to man as the infinite and perfect, capable of 
universal dominion. He does not ask the consent of his 
creatures to his exercise of authority. His right to govern 
rests on no such contingency. He assumes the govern- 
ment, and requires the obedience of his subjects. All 
moral beings are constrained to acknowledge his right to 
govern, and their own duty to obey. 

The law which God proclaims and enforces is the moral 
law — the law of nature and of reason. The great principle 
of obligation he does not create. It exists as The divine 
eternal, is affirmed in his own reason, and re- law " 
affirmed in every finite reason. As thus existing in the 
reason infinite and finite, it is law — subjective law, a real 
expression of obligation ; and conformity to it would be 
virtue. God adds to this original principle of obligation 
the authority of his own will, and publishes and enforces 
it throughout the moral universe. It thus becomes the law 
of God's government, having a vitality and impressiveness 
to his creatures indefinitely greater than that of any abstract 
principle. This expression of his will is found in the con- 
stitution of his creatures, in the course of his providence, 
and in his written Word. 

The knowledge of God's existence and attributes brings 
to men, from their own moral constitution, the conviction 
that he holds .them accountable for all their moral conduct. 
The apprehension of accountability is not strictly intuitive, 



138 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



like that of obligation ; but the conviction of it fastens 
upon the soul with an authority which it can never throw 
How known °^ however it may resist. Men do not need 
to men. an ex p ress announcement that this accounta- 

bility extends to every thought, word, and deed — all their 
moral life ; the knowledge of God's character, and of their 
dependence upon him, brings with it this conviction. Chil- 
dren look to parental authority for a vindication of the com- 
mon principles of humanity and morality. No child could 
complain, if punished for an act of cruelty, or an immoral- 
ity, that the parent had not expressly forbidden it. The 
relation itself, in which he is placed, leads him to expect 
such supervision of his life, and to regard all matters, se- 
riously affecting character and conduct, as embraced, of 
course, in parental law. So men instinctively look to God, 
when once they know him, as their guardian in reference 
to all their moral conduct. In virtuous action they expect 
his favor, in sin they dread his frown. Thus they appre- 
hend that the law of nature and of reason, the law of obli- 
gation, is the law of God. All this is true to thoughtful 
minds, even without what we call revelation. But his writ- 
ten Word comes with its clear utterances, the published law 
of God's government, and removes all excuse even from the 
thoughtless. 

The revealed law we have in the decalogue, the ten com- 
mandments. These express, not the abstract principle of 
obligation, but the law of duty in its applica- 

Revealed law. . . 

tion to the great interests 01 hie — the law in a 
concrete form. The general method is to suggest the great 
classes of duties by leading examples. Thus, in the fifth 
commandment, honor to parents is expressed, and duty in 
all similar relations is implied. In the sixth, murder is 
expressly forbidden, and all malicious injury to life or limb 



THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT. 



139 



is prohibited by implication ; and so throughout the deca- 
logue. In this form the law is adapted to the comprehen- 
sion of the unreasoning, serving all the purposes of an 
abstract, comprehensive statement of obligation, and of a 
definite, specific expression of objective duty. The later 
revelation presents the law in the more comprehensive form 
of love to God, and love to our neighbor ; and again in the 
practical, suggestive, form, called the golden rule : "As ye 
would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them " 
— a maxim which furnishes a standpoint from which our 
duties to men are to be viewed. At last we have the ex- 
pression of duty in its simple, subjective form : " Love is 
the fulfilling of the law," — implying that the attitude of 
mind required, toward God and tow r ard men, is essentially 
the same, and that virtue is one thing and only one — 
benevolence. It is worthy of remark that in every one of 
these forms, in which the law of God is embodied, sentient 
being alone is made the object of regard. Every precept 
expressing duty, every prohibition forbidding crime, directs 
the thought to God or man. We have no abstract right or 
truth set up as an object of respect, but every command is 
warm w r ith living interests, presenting the great object upon 
which the true aim centers. 

The authority of examples, the actions of good men as 
recorded in the Bible, extends to the principle of action 
alone — subjective duty, not objective. Abra- Authority of 
ham was obedient, walking according to his exam P les - 
light. We are to take his life as an indication of his spirit, 
and, cherishing the same spirit, must walk according to our 
light. So of all the good men of the Bible : their outward 
life is not our guide,-but their inward obedience. The good 
man, under our clearer light, can be as good as the faithful 
of old, only by presenting a better outward life, 



140 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



Is it not possible that a similar principle applies even to 
the Saviour's example ? In appearing among men, his out- 
The saviour's wat "d conduct must be such as could commend 
example. j^jf tQ ^ judgment of the good around him. 
In order to this, he must walk by light accessible to them, 
not by his own clearer vision. Upon any other principle 
than this, his character would have been misunderstood, 
and his conduct would have raised questions not pertinent 
to his mission. He came to exhibit the spirit of love and 
obedience. It was just as necessary that his life should 
take on forms which the people could comprehend, as that 
he should speak to them in a language which they under- 
stood. His life was such as the best of his time would 
approve. It is not certain that his style of dress as a man, 
or his work as a carpenter, should be accepted by us as a 
model, or that we should use wine because he made and 
used it. Though gifted with infinite knowledge, he was 
obliged, in a great degree, to conform his outward life to 
human judgment. The world was not suffering for light in 
reference to outward duty, but for motives to inward right- 
eousness. We imitate the Saviour, then, by partaking 
of his spirit of benevolence, and walking by the light we 
have. 

It is to be observed that obedience to the divine law is 
genuine virtue ; that its requirements refer primarily to the 
Genuine internal moral state, and secondarily to the out- 

virtue 

required. ward conduct. The law is satisfied with the 
inward obedience, not with any outward conduct whatever. 
In this respect it differs from all human laws. The imme- 
diate object of human law is the outward conduct; it is 
satisfied with conformity in this respect, without reference 
to the moral state. " Man looketh on the outward appear- 
ance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." 



THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT. 



We sometimes hear that physical law is a part of the law 
of God and ought to be obeyed. The statement implies 
great confusion of thought. Physical law is Pbysical law> 
simply the mode in which forces act in the not moraL 
natural world, or the order of events in the relation of cause 
and effect. It is a fact which is to be considered in our 
judgment of outward duty. The facts of our physical con- 
stitution, the laws of life and health, as they are called, are 
of account to us, and call for attention — are to be taken for 
what they are worth in determining duty. But every law 
which ought to be obeyed, which involves the idea of obli- 
gation, is a moral law. Physical law contains no ought. If 
it is merely intended that the laws of our physical constitu- 
tion are always to be conformed to, so as to secure the 
highest health and the longest life, even this is not a uni- 
versal truth. The moral law often leads us where health 
and life are sacrificed. It sends the gospel missionary to a 
malarious climate, the soldier to the battlefield, the martyr 
to the stake, and lays upon men, in the work of every day, 
burdens which crush their strength and shorten their days. 

The law of God is strictly personal ; it addresses every 
one on the ground of his own personality, and adapts itself 
completely to his condition and circumstances. Personality 
It has no average standard of duty, adapted to of the law - 
families, or ages, or races ; and the final appointment of 
good or evil is not made to men in groups or by nations, 
but with a discrimination which takes note of personal char- 
acter. Yet there is a sense in which the divine government 
pertains to families and nations, in their collective character. 
These have a kind of unity, a continuous collective life, 
transmitted from generation to generation. The individuals 
that compose the family, or the nation, pass away ; but 
others succeed to their places, sustain similar relations and 



142 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



responsibilities, and adopt the practices and principles of 
action, and thus indorse the deeds of those who have pre- 
Application ceded them. Thus, in a general way, we at- 

to families . . 

and nations. tribute to the British nation, or to the French, 
the character, and acts even, which have been exhibited in 
their history during several generations. We refer them 
to no individual, but to the nation at large. In a similar 
manner, God, in his Word, speaks of the Jewish people, 
and of other nations, and charges upon them sins w r hich, 
in their specific form, had been committed ages before. 
But the sin had never been put away ; no amends had 
even been attempted, and the people still held to the same 
general course. A nation may adopt a system of injustice 
or oppression, and transmit it, as we have seen in our own 
land, from generation to generation, becoming thus a nation 
of oppressors. The guilt is all personal, as all sin must be. 
The sin of the nation is but the aggregate of the individual 
sin ; it characterizes the nation, and it is a part of God's 
administration to show his disapprobation of such nations, 
that other nations may be instructed. The career of nations 
Nations dealt IS limited to this world, and the display of the 

with in this ...... 

world. divine judgment upon nations must be made 

here. The catastrophe may be long deferred, but it comes 
at length, and brings retribution for the sins of genera- 
tions ; thus God " visits the iniquities of the fathers upon 
the children to the third and fourth generation of them 
that hate him." Still the guilt is all individual; and in the 
final allotment of the destinies of men, this national sin will 
be distributed to its proper owners. " The son shall not 
bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear 
the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous 
shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall 
be upon him." 



THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT. 



143 



What is properly called a national sin must have some 
specific outward form, either sanctioned by the government, 
or sustained by general societv, or both. But 

. . . National sins. 

one may share m the national sin who has had 
no connection with it in outward form. If, in any respect, 
he has failed in obedience to the divine law, he has, so far, 
presented an example of disobedience. Thus he gives his 
sanction, in the most effective form, to any wrong to which 
the people may be inclined, and strengthens and extends 
the national sin. Hence, the duty of repentance for na- 
tional sins, and confession of them, pertains to every mem- 
ber of the community who has not " a conscience void of 
offense toward God and toward men." 



CHAPTER III. 



PENALTIES UNDER THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT. 

Penalty is evil inflicted by the government upon a 
transgressor, as an expression of his guilt or ill-desert. The 
Nature of object of the penalty is, in general, to sustain 
penalty. th<e government and the law, and thus to sub- 
serve the public good. 

The effect of the penalty is twofold : first, it induces 
fear, the apprehension of similar evil in the case of trans- 
Primary gression. The immediate effect of fear as a 
effect. motive is to secure an outward conformity to 

the law. Thus, Burns says : 

" The fear of hell's the hangman's whip, 
To haud the wretch in order." 

Such outward conformity secures, in a degree, the end of 
human government ; but in the divine, outward conformity 
is no obedience. True virtue cannot result immediately 
from fear, but indirectly it may. Fear leads to reflection, 
and reflection often leads to a renunciation of sin, and the 
practice of virtue. Hence, the fear of punishment is a 
proper consideration to urge upon the thoughtless and the 
wayward. 

But a second and much more important effect of penalty 
is to make an impressive exhibition of the nature and ill- 
desert of sin, and thus lead to its renunciation. The guilt 
of evil-doing is most forcibly exhibited in the light of the 

144 



PENALTIES UNDER THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT. 14$ 



penalty which it deserves and incurs. Crime unpunished 
ceases to be regarded as crime, and the denial of punish- 
ment in the divine government is wont to be secondary 
attended by a low estimate of the guilt of sin. effect. 
It may be the occasion or the consequence of the denial, or 
both, but when penalty ceases to be contemplated, sin will 
often be considered an ignorance or a blunder. 

It is a matter of intuitive perception that the evil-doer 
deserves punishment, but ill- desert is not a sufficient reason 
for the infliction of punishment ; if it were, par- m . desert and 
don would always be wrong when punishment P enalt y- 
is deserved. It is true, we have an " ethical nature," in- 
volving a sentiment of justice, which is gratified with the 
appropriate punishment of sin ; but we have, as well, a 
sentiment of compassion disposing to mercy. Neither of 
these feelings, nor any other feeling, is a guide to right in 
the case. The proper end of punishment is not to meet the 
desert of the sinner, and thus satisfy the law ; it may be 
abstractly right that he should have his deserts, but abstract 
right is not an end to be pursued, still less is it a reason for 
inflicting any evil ; and the law, apart from the good it 
secures, is nothing. 

The satisfactory reason for punishment is, that it is neces- 
sary to the general good. Its tendency to restrain from 
transgression, to promote virtue and happiness, R eaS on for 
warrants its infliction. Any combination of penalty, 
circumstances which removes this reason for the penalty 
makes its infliction improper. The existence of ill-desert 
is necessary to punishment, but of itself it is no satisfactory 
reason for punishment. Ill- desert exists even after pardon 
has been bestowed, but it is not a reason for punishment. 

In regard to the extent of penalty, its degree and dura- 
tion, we have no natural, intuitive, rule. To the human 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



understanding, there is no common measure of guilt and 
of evil, by which we can balance a given degree of guilt 
Extent of ^ equivalent of pain. And, again, if there 
penalty. were such a standard, it is not self-evident 
that the penalty should in every case reach the exact desert 
of the transgression. It could not properly exceed the 
guilt ; but if it were clear or probable that the public good 
could be as well sustained by a penalty less than the de- 
sert, it would be right to inflict the lighter penalty ; because 
the only true reason for the penalty is, that it subserves 
that good. Unquestionably there should be some general 
correspondence between the penalty and the sin, the more 
aggravated crime being visited with the sterner penalty ; 
beyond this somewhat vague idea, we have no exact 
knowledge. It is a matter of experience, in human gov- 
ernments, to ascertain how severe in degree and in dura- 
tion its penalties should be — how many years of impris- 
onment to appoint to a given crime, and how much of 
hardship should be involved in the imprisonment. These 
questions are settled only by the experience of generations ; 
and it is altogether possible that the proper standard of pen- 
alty in one state of society may not be suited to another. 
If it be true that lighter penalties, in our day, answer the 
ends of government as well as did the severer ones of former 
generations, this of itself does not prove that those severer 
penalties were out of place. Perhaps they were needed 
then. Such is the attitude of the transgressor of law, that 
it is just to inflict upon him any evil that is necessary to 
counteract the mischief of his doings. Until that degree 
of penalty is reached, he cannot complain that it exceeds 
his desert ; but beyond that, there is, in the nature of things, 
no warrant for inflicting penalty. 



PENALTIES UNDER THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT. 1 47 



A distinction is to be made between discipline and pen- 
alty. These are often confounded. Discipline is imparting 
instruction and culture by .the infliction of pain. Discipline not 
It sometimes follows transgression, for correc- P enalt y- 
tion ; and sometimes it is bestowed in advance, for preven- 
tion. Its chief aim is the improvement of the subject, and 
it sustains no certain relation to guilt. Discipline may exist 
without guilt, punishment cannot. Discipline is not always 
an expression of moral disapprobation ; it always indicates 
a want, for which the discipline is offered as a remedy. 
Punishment, on the other hand, respects primarily the pub- 
lic good. The criminal has forfeited his own good by his 
crime, and the government is required to remedy, as far as 
may be, the mischief of the crime by punishment. The 
good of the community, and not of the offender, is the 
measure of the punishment. If it can be made to subserve 
his good, at the same time, all the better ; it serves then the 
double purpose of discipline and of punishment. Such a 
combination often exists, especially in family combination 
and school government; but even in the fam- ° fthetw °- 
ily, the idea of good to the offender must sometimes be 
relinquished, and punishment must be inflicted for the 
good of the family alone. It is not true, then, that punish- 
ment contemplates, primarily, or even at all, the reforma- 
tion of the offender, nor is it necessary that, in form, it 
should be adapted to this end. The first point to be se- 
cured is the protection of society ; and whatever can be 
done for the offender, consistently with this, benevolence 
requires should be done. Punishment aims to prevent 
crime by its effect upon the subjects of the government at 
large, and not chiefly by its effect upon the criminal him- 
self. The term penitentiary is an inadequate name for the 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



state-prison. It should be first a prison, and afterward a 
school of reform ; and it cannot be a successful school of 
reform without being distinctly a prison. 

Penalties are of the same essential nature in the divine 
government as in human government, and must be inflicted 
Penalty in upon the same conditions, and for the same 

divine gov- .... 

emment. end. They are natural evils, inflicted upon the 
transgressor by the government, to counteract the mischief 
of the transgression, and promote obedience to the law. 
The necessity for penalty in the divine administration is the 
same as in any government. It is a government of moral 
beings, by motive, not by force ; and an essential element 
in the moral pow r er of the government is penalty. There is 
a vague idea, somewhat prevalent, that God, by his attribute 
of almighty power, can govern the world without such mo- 
tives ; but the subjects of his government are moral beings ; 
and virtue, which alone is obedience to the divine law, is 
the free action of moral beings. Almighty power can cre- 
ate and destroy moral beings ; it cannot compel virtuous 
action. Omnipotence and moral power are totally distinct, 
and one cannot take the place of the other. The material 
universe God controls by physical power ; he persuades to 
virtue by motives. 

Of the form, and degree, and duration of penalty in 
God's government, we have no intuitive knowledge ; all 
Degree and tnat we know, positively, is matter of revela- 
duration. tion, either through God's providence or his 
written Word, and a full discussion of the subject belongs 
rather to Biblical Theology than to morals. It may be 
sufficient to say here that the announcements of the pen- 
alty of sin are among the most striking and impressive and 
unambiguous declarations of God's Word. They are found, 
not in the older Hebrew Scriptures alone, but, in most pos- 



PENALTIES UNDER THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT. 1 49 



itive and definite forms, in the latest revelation ; and none 
are more significant than those which fell from the lips of 
the Saviour himself. His work of redemption and pardon 
needed to be exhibited upon the terrible background of the 
penalty of the law, to save it from misconstruction. The 
human conscience, in all ages, has responded to these dec- 
larations, and has even formed to itself such conceptions, 
without the light of revelation. Speculative philosophy has 
sometimes attempted to break the force of these announce- 
ments, by showing that there was no ground for them — 
that there could be no such ill-desert on the part of finite 
beings as would justify everlasting punishment. A simple 
reflection upon the nature of guilt will set aside the specu- 
lation. Guilt is, in its own nature, as enduring as the sub- 
ject of it. While the sinner exists, he must be Guilt ever _ 
guilty for every sin he has committed. The lasting, 
sin renders him ill- deserving, and that ill- desert attaches to 
his personality, and can never be discharged. No subse- 
quent virtue can offset it, because the virtue can never 
exceed the obligation under which it exists. It cannot be 
canceled by punishment ; it is not in the nature of punish- 
ment to remove guilt. The ill- desert is just as great after 
punishment as before. Pardon sets aside penalty, but does 
not remove the guilt. The pardoned sinner receives favor 
that he never can deserve. Guilt is, in the nature of the 
case, as lasting as the soul. This affords a natural condi- 
tion for everlasting punishment. If such punishment is 
necessary, it will not be unjust. Of its necessity, human 
reason cannot properly testify. Of the fact of such punish- 
ment, revelation alone can speak. It is often maintained 
that guilt is infinite, and therefore punishment may be ever- 
lasting. It is better to say, what seems clearly possible and 
true, that guilt is endless. 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



It is sometimes urged that the natural consequences of 
wrong- doing are the proper penalty of the sin, the appointed 
Natural con- means by which God expresses his disappro- 

sequence and . . . . 

penalty. bation oi it. 1 his view is restricted, wholly, to 

the divine government. No one dreams that the natural 
consequence of transgression can be penalty in any hu- 
man government. Does it answer this purpose in God's 
government ? 

Natural consequences of acts of transgression are of two 
kinds : the consequences of the outward act as a physical 
Two kinds of act > anc ^ the consequence of the inward sinful 

consequences. gtate _ Xhe regult Q f the oTltward act is the 

immediate physical effect, of which the act itself is the 
cause. The pain and injury of burning come from contact 
with fire — the inevitable consequence, whether the act, with 
reference to its internal character, be sinful, accidental, or 
benevolent. The effect of taking poison is death, whether 
the act be intentional or not. So, of drinking alcoholic 
spirits, the result is intoxication, without reference to the 
motive of the act. The injury of the burn is not the 
penalty of encountering the fire ; if so, the fireman is pun- 
ished for his heroic benevolence. Death is not the penalty 
The injury not °f swallowing poison ; if so, the innocent are 
penalty. often punished. In all these cases, the conse- 
quence is the mere effect of the external act ; but it does 
not serve the purpose of a penalty. It comes in the estab- 
lished order of nature, and thus is a 'part of the divine ar- 
rangement ; but the evidence is entirely "wanting that it 
is an expression of God's disapprobation of the act, any- 
more than the pleasure of an act of sin is an expression 
of his approval. If so, he does not discriminate between 
an act of duty, which involves self-sacrifice and pain, and 
an act of sin. It is inconceivable that penalties under 



PENALTIES UNDER THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT. 1 5 I 



God's administration should be dispensed so indiscrimi- 
nately. Any government must fail that should depend 
on such a distribution of penalties. The simple fact is, 
that God has connected the consequence with the external 
act, without reference to its character. In general, it is 
duty to avoid the act, and the injury that follows. At 
times, it is duty to encounter the evil. It is not possible 
to conceive that God punishes an act of duty. Can we, 
then, discriminate and say, that when the act is virtuous, 
or innocent, the evil consequence is not punishment, but 
it becomes punishment when the act is sinful? But the 
fact that it is inevitable, whether the act was virtuous 
or sinful, must destroy its effect as penalty. It is not 
seen to be an unequivocal expression of disapprobation 
on the part of the government. The acts in question be- 
come sinful only in consequence of the evil that follows. 
The use of intoxicating drinks would not be sinful, but for 
the harm that follows. We have, then, the singular com- 
bination of a penalty attached to an innocent act, which 
becomes sinful on account of the annexed penalty. To 
account these inevitable consequences penalties cannot fail 
to lead to confusion, in reference to the divine government, 
and to abate from the significance of God's disapprobation. 

It is a common remark, that physical laws are God's 
laws, and that these inevitable consequences are the pen- 
alty of physical law. We have seen that, to Physical law 
speak of physical law as obligatory, or capable and P enalt y- 
of being violated, or as bringing punishment, involves utter 
confusion. Physical law is no law of obligation, and can 
have no penalty. There is no clear thought that answers 
to these words. 

But is not the remorse, the self-condemnation, which at- 
tends upon a sinful act, a real penalty ? It is true that this 



152 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



does not occur without sin, unless it sometimes results, un- 
der morbid conditions, from fancied sin. Remorse is a nat- 
is remorse ura ^ consequence of sin, provided for in the very 
penalty ? constitution of moral beings ; and the very fact 
that it is an inevitable consequence, inseparable, in thought, 
from a moral being in an act of sin, unfits it to serve the 
purpose of penalty. It cannot serve as penalty in human 
government, because it is not inflicted by the government, 
and can be no expression of its disapprobation. Human 
government may bring its penalties to bear, in connection 
with this tendency of the soul. It may shut a man up to 
himself, and compel to reflection, and thus make its penal- 
ties effective. For the same reason, mere self-condemna- 
tion cannot become penalty in the divine government. Its 
existence is not the result of a governmental arrangement. 
It is true that God created the moral constitution, but it is 
inconceivable that a moral being could be made without 
the constitutional necessity for self-condemnation. Hence, 
simple, inevitable self-condemnation does not carry with it 
evidence of disapprobation /rom the government. It would 
arise, all the same, if moral beings could exist and sin, with- 
out any divine government. It is not a result of govern- 
ment, but rather of the perception of obligation, and a 
failure to meet it ; and obligation is not founded on gov- 
ernment, but government is founded on obligation. Re- 
morse, in itself, is not properly penalty, under the govern- 
ment of God ; but penalties may reach the sinner through 
May be made this channel. That remorse which results from 
penalty. providential arrangement, involving the evi- 
dence of God's intervention, the pain of which is intensified 
by the consciousness of his displeasure, is an effective 
punishment. This is no mere natural consequence. It is 



PENALTIES UNDER THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT. I 5 3 



a positive divine action upon the soul, through the natural 
channels of the moral nature. 

There is also an important distinction to be observed 
between natural and providential consequences. Many 
of the frequent results of sin, which we call Providential 
natural consequences, are not strictly such. conse i uences - 
They are not the inevitable, necessary sequences of the 
acts, but come about through a combination of forces which 
suggest the intervention of divine providence. A drunk- 
ard, in his intoxication, is precipitated from a height and 
crushed. This is not strictly a natural consequence of his 
sin. It is not rare that such circumstances attend an event 
of the sort, as to impress all beholders with a conviction 
that it comes of divine appointment. It is true that an 
innocent blind man may suffer a similar catastrophe, and it 
may be difficult to determine what circumstances are neces- 
sary to indicate that one of these events is a divine judg- 
ment, and the other not ; but the difference is sometimes 
so clearly marked as to remove all doubt, and to impress 
all beholders with awe, in view of this foreshadowing of 
" the righteous judgment of God." Such events have oc- 
curred in the history of individuals, and of nations. They 
come, to all human appearance, through the operation of 
natural laws ; but they are accepted as providential, not 
merely natural, consequences. 



CHAPTER IV. 

CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 

Civil Government rests on the common foundation 
of all government — its necessity for the well-being of its 
subjects. It seems essential to the safety and 

Its foundation. 

prosperity of mankind. Without it, there is no 
progress in civilization, in the general social or moral condi- 
tion ; and in proportion as the government becomes settled, 
and is made effective for the protection of the interests 
of the people, the general condition of the community is 
improved. 

This fact, of the necessity of government to the well- 
being of any community, gives to one who occupies a 
Right to favorable position, and possesses other qualifi- 
govem. cations, the right to govern, and imposes upon 

the rest the obligation of obedience. In order to this 
obligation, it is not necessary that the ruler should be 
designated in any one specific form. The mode of his 
designation, or appointment, is involved in the form of 
the government ; and the form of government, actual or 
Form of gov- possible, depends greatly upon the condition of 
emment. people, as to intelligence and virtue ; but 

more, perhaps, upon their origin and historical growth. 
Out of these the ruling forces of society commonly arise. 
The civil governments of the world have not, in most 
cases, been adopted arbitrarily, nor have they been com- 
plete, in form, at their first institution. They have grown 

i54 



CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 



155 



to their ultimate proportions from some formative prin- 
ciple, existing in the earliest condition of the people, and 
from superadded forces which have operated from time 
to time. Much depends upon the original character of 
the people, as a whole, and somewhat upon the molding 
power of individual minds that have appeared in its his- 
tory. There seems to be no power in a nation to change, 
utterly, and at will, its form of government. Great and 
sudden changes occur, but they were provided for in the 
antecedent condition of the people, and do not come arbi- 
trarily. 

That form of government, then, is legitimate which 
actually exists ; because, in general, it is the form which is 
adapted to the people, by reason of their char- Legitimate 
acter and history. It is legitimate, because government, 
it best subserves their interests. Whenever another form 
will better serve the purpose of government, will better 
secure the interests of the governed, they have a right to 
secure it. 

A distinction has been made between a government de 
facto and a government de jure — between the existing and 
the legitimate government. But the existing A common 
government, whatever it be, must be accounted distinction, 
legitimate until a better or another takes its place. The 
government exists because there is at present no power 
to secure a better ; and it must be respected, and sus- 
tained, within the limits always set to submission to human 
authority. It may have originated in wickedness, or usur- 
pation, as most of the governments of the world have 
done ; yet, until something better can be secured, allegi- 
ance is due it. We are not to look at its origin, but at its 
immediate bearing on the interests of the people. It 
ceases to have authoritv when a better is attainable. 



156 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



A tyranny is a government which is administered for the 
pleasure or advantage of a class, or of a few, in opposition 
to the interests of the many. It fails to answer 

A tyranny. 

the ends of government. Any government 
may properly be called a tyranny which holds its place 
and form to the exclusion of another which is possible, 
under all the circumstances, and which would better pro- 
mote the end. In this view, many governments are 
tyrannous in some of their features, while beneficent on 
the whole. The character of a government does not de- 
pend, wholly, upon the personal character and intentions of 
the rulers. They may be corrupt in character, and yet not 
able to pervert the government ; or they may be honest 
and well-disposed, and still be unable to give the govern- 
ment a beneficent bearing. Good rulers may render a 
badly constituted government tolerable, and bad rulers 
may pervert a good government. 

The constitution of a government is the established 
mode in which the government is administered, including 
The con- the appointment of rulers, and the distribution 
stitution. Q £ t | le f unc tions of government. The consti- 
tution may exist in a generally accepted order of things, 
transmitted from one generation to another, with little 
change or question — an unwritten constitution ; or it may 
exist as a written document, prescribing, in definite terms, 
the mode of administration. A constitution, written or 
unwritten, to have stability, must conform to the general 
views and life of the people. It must be the outgrowth of 
the social forces which prevail. A written constitution, to 
be successful, must, in general, exist before as an unwritten 
one ; or rather, it must have its foundation in the estab- 
lished life of the people. A constitution, written, and 
formally adopted, cannot be considered as established, 



CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 



157 



until it has been subjected to years of trial, and has served 
its purpose in times of conflict as well as of peace. No 
constitution can be established for all time. itsestab- 
The people change, and thus arises a new lishment. 
adjustment of forces. New emergencies arise, not antici- 
pated, and for which no provision has been made. Hence, 
constitutions must change. Their only binding force, or 
sacredness, is in the interests they sustain. When they 
fail to meet the want, they must give way. If the change 
can be effected by modes prescribed in the constitution 
itself, it is well ; but, in any case, the safety of the people 
is to be secured, if possible, even if the constitution suf- 
fers. The constitution is a means, and not an end. Every 
progressive State is evolving new constitutional prin- 
ciples. 

The somewhat popular idea that civil government is a 
social compact, and derives its authority from general 
agreement, or consent, is not an axiom, or even Not a social 
a truth. With rare exceptions, governments com P act - 
have not arisen in this manner ; and even if such had been 
their origin historically, it would not have been the foun- 
dation of their authority. Men need to be governed. If 
they consent, it is well ; if not, they must still be governed. 
It may be said that in yielding they consent ; but the right 
of the government to command precedes the yielding. It 
may compel the obedience of one, or of many. 

The right to govern does not, universally, rest with the 
majority. It is not a question of will, but of interests. 
The presumption is in favor of the majority ; Right of the 
but if, at any time, a few can better secure the ma J° rit y- 
interests of all, it is their right and duty to do it. This is 
always the case in the family, and in the school ; it may 
sometimes be so in the State. 



158 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



The principle of representation, as a condition of obli- 
gation to obey and support the government, is not a uni- 
Principle of versal one. It is not always true that such 

representa- ... 

tion. a constitution is possible as shall secure full 

representation of all classes ; yet the government is valid, 
and can require the support of its subjects, while it serves 
the ends of government. Taxation without formal repre- 
sentation is not necessarily tyranny. Where protection is 
afforded to persons and to property, the right of taxation 
exists, both on the basis of persons and of property. The 
cost of protecting the person can be required of each per- 
son ; and the cost of protecting property, of each holder of 
property. 

The right or privilege of voting for rulers is to be deter- 
mined upon similar principles. The right depends upon 
Right of tne constitution of the government, and the 
voting. constitution of the government is determined 

by what is possible and best. It is not a right which at- 
taches to human nature, unconditionally ; and no one can 
demand it as a condition of submitting to government. No 
one can claim the privilege, except upon the ground that 
his exercise of the right will be promotive of the public 
good, or, at least, not detrimental to it. If the right is 
claimed for foreigners, the claim must be based, not on any 
abstract justice, but on a probable benefit to the com- 
munity. If the claim is made in behalf of women, it must 
be on similar grounds. 

The exercise of the right of suffrage is a governmental 
function. It directs and. controls the administration of the 
Duty of government, and hence should be contem- 

votmg. plated as a responsibility, and not as a per- 

sonal privilege, to be used or neglected at will. Those to 
whom the right is extended have a duty to perform, and 



CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 



159 



carelessness or dishonesty is a breach of trust. If the in- 
telligent and the virtuous neglect this duty, they surrender 
the government to the ignorant and the vicious. It is not 
a question of personal convenience, or interest, but of pub- 
lic responsibility. The ballot does not of itself afford a 
just distribution of influence. It gives to the ignorant and 
the corrupt the same weight in government as to the wise 
and virtuous. This, in itself, is wrong; but the evil is, 
to a great extent, remedied by the operation of personal 
influence, which gives to a wise man the direction of the 
votes of the ignorant and thoughtless. Thus, a widely 
extended suffrage becomes a safe and just principle of 
government. 

The idea that rulers, in a democratic State, are the serv- 
ants of the people, to execute their will, contains only a 
partial truth. They are servants, in the sense 
that they are to promote the real interests of 
the people, not to do their pleasure. They are elected to 
govern, not to serve. In the same sense, parents are serv- 
ants of their children, and teachers of their pupils. They 
are to do what is needed — not always what is desired. 
There is a similar error in the doctrine of instruction — that 
a representative must vote according to the will Doctrine of 
of a majority of his constituents. He is to instruction, 
take his place in a deliberative assembly, where the in- 
terests of all parties, and of all portions of the country, are 
to be considered. These interests, in all their extent, are 
to govern his vote, not simply the special interests of those 
who elected him, and certainly not their mere will. When 
a question has been publicly considered and acted upon by 
any constituency, the representative may properly follow 
the instruction. 

In every civil government, whatever its form, the will of 



i6o 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



the governed is a controlling power, whether expressed by 
vote and representation, or not. A government in direct 
win of the conflict with the aggregate will of the people 
governed. - g a i wa y S impossible. An absolute monarch 
is not independent of his subjects. Sooner or later, he 
must yield what is required. In a democratic govern- 
ment, there are settled, constitutional methods in which the 
public will makes itself felt. This removes all excuse for 
revolutions and violent convulsions, and, to a great extent, 
removes the inducements to such movements. When such 
a constitution is consistent with the degree of intelligence 
and virtue which prevails, the public security, and the per- 
manence of the government, are best secured by it ; but, 
in every government, there is a tendency to change and 
revolution, until all interests are properly provided for. 
To construct a government which shall provide for all the 
interests of a people, for many generations, is a problem 
that has probably never been solved. The history of the 
Tendency to world leaves little room for doubt that the 
democracy. tendency, in all progressive society, is to a 
democratic form of government ; and the nature of the case 
seems to present the same idea. The hereditary advan- 
tages of classes must finally disappear with the general 
progress of the people, and the natural and necessary result 
must be an equal representation of all classes in the gov- 
ernment. A tendency to the democratic form, in any 
government, is presumptive, not conclusive, evidence of 
progress in civilization ; and such changes should be heartily 
welcomed, because they lie in the direction of the ultimate 
condition. On the other hand, all reaction from democratic 
forms should be resisted, or accepted, with great reluctance, 
because every such reaction is a loss, which must be re- 
trieved, if there is to be continued progress in civilization. 



CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 



161 



It is a misfortune to a people to be obliged to take such a 
step. The safest and surest means to democratic liberty 
in government is advancement in intelligence and virtue. 
Political revolution, if necessary, is a later step in the move- 
ment ; and anarchy or despotism, not liberty, is the result 
of premature attempts at revolution. 

The ordinary work of human government is sufficiently 
obvious, but it is more difficult to determine the precise 
limits of its proper operations. What interests Sphere of 
it can wisely undertake to regulate, and what government, 
should be left to the spontaneous action of the people, are 
questions that can be settled only by experience. They 
belong to political and social science, rather than to morals. 
As a question of right, it is clear that government should 
undertake such responsibilities as it wisely can, and the 
light which is to guide is derived from experience. In one 
state of society it is wise, and therefore right, to under- 
take what, under other circumstances, would be impossible. 
The maxims adapted to one state of society will not apply 
to another. Whether the regulation of the interests of 
education and of religion belongs properly to government 
or not, can be determined by no intuitive principle, and the 
question admits of no universal answer. Whatever is wise, 
in any case, is right. Government, like an individual, must 
do what good it can, and it is under no obligation to make 
an attempt when there is no reasonable prospect of success. 

The positive requirements of government must be, as far 

as they go, re-enactments of the law of obligation. It can 

never rightfully require what it is wrong for Relation to 
i , . it- • rjgnteous- 

tne subject to do, but its requirements may ness. 

properly fall far short of his whole duty. They are, prob- 
ably, never complete expressions of duty. In this respect 
they differ from the divine law. The divine law covers all 



l62 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



duty ; human law only such duty, and so much of it, as 
properly falls within its sphere. Many matters of impor- 
tant obligation are never touched by human law. Indeed, 
the substance of all duty, the duty of benevolence, is not 
at all enjoined by human law. But aside from this, there 
are multitudes of outward duties which human law does 
not contemplate. It does not require politeness, or charity, 
but these are manifest duties. The payment of all honest 
debts is not provided for by law. Certain forms of debt, 
only, are made collectable. All this lies in the nature of 
the case. It is impossible to do more. 

Even in matters of which human legislation takes note, 
the law must often fall far short of the obligation of the 
May fan subject. It cannot always come up to the 
short ' standard of objective rightness. In legislating 

for the suppression of drunkenness, the question is not so 
much what is desirable and right, as what is practicable ; 
and what is practicable determines what is proper. What 
can be done, is the measure of what ought to be done. 
The prohibition of all harmful use of intoxicating drinks is 
objectively right ; but if such a law cannot be executed, 
a less comprehensive, but more effective one, must be ac- 
cepted. There is neither duty nor propriety in the enact- 
ment of a law which cannot be maintained. It is not 
necessary, however, that a majority of the community 
should approve a law in order to its execution. A small 
minority of determined men can sometimes give effective- 
ness to a righteous law. At other times, such may be the 
stupidity or ignorance of a whole people that the legisla- 
tion cannot be brought up to the standard of outw T ard 
righteousness. The law of divorce among the Hebrews, 
in the time of Moses, is an example. There was no lack 
of wisdom in the legislation, but, for " the hardness of their 



CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 



163 



hearts," they were suffered, on certain conditions, to put 
away their wives. It was the best that could be done 
with such a people. 

In connection with such a conforming of the law to 
human weakness, two mistakes are sometimes made : first, 
that it is a sanctioning of iniquity to abate, in 

Two mistakes. 

the form of the law, from the perfect standard 
of righteousness, on account of the wickedness of men. 
For legislators to do the best they can in the suppres- 
sion of wickedness, is certainly no sanction of wickedness. 
Prohibiting and suppressing a part is not approving of the 
rest. The second mistake is, that conformity to human 
law, in reference to any obligation, is the fulfillment of the 
obligation. Xhe law does not undertake to express the 
full obligation, but only so much of it as is essential to the 
outward regulation of society. God's law, not man's, is 
the standard of righteousness. 



CHAPTER V. 



PENALTIES IN CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 

THE purpose of penalties in human government is the 
same as in the divine — to restrain by fear of punishment, 
use of an d to instruct by an exhibition of the ill- desert 

penalties. Q f cr j me Since outward conformity is all that 
human government takes note of, fear operates directly as 
a motive to obedience ; but the far more important influ- 
ence is the light which the penalty throws upon the nature 
of the crime itself. The wickedness of transgression is the 
great restraint, and nothing so impressively exhibits this 
wickedness as an appropriate penalty. The right to inflict 
penalties has the same condition and foundation as in the 
divine government — they are deserved, and are necessary. 
The same distinction is to be observed between discipline 
and punishment ; and the right to punish is to be main- 
tained against the sentimentalism which would substitute 
reformation for punishment. 

There has been a tendency, in some parts, to attribute 
crime to ignorance, and account it a misfortune, to speak 
a ^_ orn „ c of the criminal as the victim of a false social 

A dangerous 

tendency. system, and to blame those whom he wrongs, 
rather than the wrong- doer himself. There is, doubtless, 
room for pity in the case of every criminal, and crime is 
never perpetrated without temptation ; but pity should not 
be more prominent than blame in the treatment of crime, 
and temptation does not remove the propriety or necessity 



PENALTIES IN CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 165 

of punishment. It is never to be forgotten, that the crim- 
inal is a man, and has a claim to all the offices of humanity 
which are consistent with the treatment of him as a crim- 
inal. The humanitarian sentiment, which rejects punish- 
ment, is most prevalent in communities where crime is least 
known. In the presence of monstrous offenses against 
society, it can find no place. 

The right of government to inflict capital punishment 
has been specially resisted. The death penalty has ob- 
viously another aim than the good of the capital 

. , punishment, 

criminal, and hence urgent, and persistent, and howjustified? 
partially successful efforts have been made for its aboli- 
tion. The grounds upon which capital punishment is to be 
justified, are, that it is deserved, and is necessary. That 
murder, treason, and other crimes which imperil life de- 
serve the penalty of death, is beyond question. These 
crimes, in their own nature, suggest *death as the appro- 
priate penalty. The penalty must be an expression of the 
guilt of the crime. No other penalty so fully serves this 
purpose, either in form or in degree. The offense is 
against life, and what more fit than that life should answer 
for it ? Any other penalty would fail to meet the demand 
for correspondence in form. There are crimes of such a 
nature that no corresponding penalty is possible ; but 
where it is possible, the correspondence is desirable. In 
degree, no other penalty meets the case. Life is the high- 
est earthly interest, and a penalty which affects a less in- 
terest fails to express the guilt of crimes against life. In 
the nature of the case, then, this penalty seems necessary. 

The experience of the world sustains this view of its 
necessity. Those nations and communities that have made 
the highest attainments in social order, have done so in the 
use of capital punishment for murder and related crimes. 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



The thought of dispensing with it was never suggested 
in these communities until murder had almost ceased to 
Testimony of occur » an d the question had become theoretical 
experience. rat h er than practical. Probably not an in- 
stance can be found, in the history of the world, of any 
great progress in civilization without this penalty. 

Capital punishment is sustained by revelation. The in- 
junction upon Noah and his posterity was, "Whoso shed- 
deth man's blood, by man shall his blood be 

Of Scripture. ... 

shed, for in the image of God made he man." 
The connection shows that this is a positive precept, ap- 
parently intended for all the coming ages. The reason 
given is perpetual. Capital punishment was prescribed in 
several of the laws given to the Jews, indicating that it is 
sometimes appropriate. The ground upon which it was 
prescribed is significant : " The land cannot be cleansed of 
the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him 
that shed it." 

The objections to capital punishment which call for con- 
sideration are the following : 

The spirit of the New Testament, and the whole drift of 
the gospel, is against such punishment. The injunction, 
objections. " Love your enemies, do good to them that 
Testament. hate you, and pray for them that despitefully 
use you and persecute you," is essentially a prohibition of 
capital punishment. 

The obvious answer is, if such general precepts forbid 
capital punishment, they forbid all punishment, both fines 
and imprisonment. But it is a mistake to suppose that the 
benevolence required by the New Testament, or that in the 
nature of the case can be required, is inconsistent with any 
necessary punishment. Love to man requires the use of 



PENALTIES IN CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 



167 



all means necessary to human welfare. If capital punish- 
ment is adapted to this end, its infliction is benevolent. 

Again, it is objected that capital punishment is not 
necessary, because solitary imprisonment for life is just as 
efficacious in the prevention of crime ; and this 

. 1 1 • • 11 Unnecessary. 

is maintained, on the ground that it is naturally 

as influential, and that in experience it has been found to 

be as effective. 

In reply, it may be said, that the convictions of men do 
not accord with the idea that imprisonment is as impres- 
sive. In the nature of the case it is not so. A few 
persons have been known to commit suicide to escape im- 
prisonment, but more have done the same thing to escape 
the evils of life. Such cases do not present the normal 
judgment of men ; they are exceptional. Few cases of 
capital punishment occur without a strenuous effort, in 
behalf of the criminal, to secure a commutation of his sen- 
tence for imprisonment ; and such a commutation is wel- 
comed almost like a pardon. The question is not whether, 
in actual experience, solitary confinement may not be as 
terrible as death, but whether it strikes the mind, in con- 
templating it, with equal force. To this question, but one 
answer can be given : life under almost any conceivable 
conditions is preferred to death. The great dramatist 
has, unquestionably, expressed the common feeling : 

' 4 The weariest and most loathed worldly life 
Which age, ache, penury, and imprisonment 
Can lay on nature, is a paradise 
To what we fear of death." 

It is not the actual suffering, but the impressiveness, 
that is of value in a penalty. If, as is probable, solitary 
confinement for life is, in actual experience, so distressing 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



as to make death seem preferable, this fact is in favor of 
death instead. The effect of imprisonment, in anticipation, 
impressive- * s D y no means as great as that of death ; yet 
ness needed, those wno have seen their friends becoming 
hopeless, imbecile, and idiotic, under the pressure of soli- 
tary confinement, have sometimes, in view of this, peti- 
tioned for the death penalty. Benevolence would dictate 
that those years of hopeless wretchedness should be spared 
to the criminal, buried, as he is, from the eyes and the 
thoughts of men. The simple announcement of the sen- 
tence is all that operates upon the public mind; of the 
years of misery that follow, there is almost no knowledge, 
and little thought. Solitary confinement, with all its hope- 
lessness, is far less effective as a penalty, and is probably 
less merciful. The opportunity of preparation for death is 
quite as favorable to him who meets it in the full possession 
of his faculties, as to one who, shut away from every whole- 
some influence, gradually lapses into hopeless idiocy. 

The limited experience of recent times, in the substitu- 
tion of solitary imprisonment for capital punishment, can- 
Experience n °t De re g ai "ded as satisfactory. In the first 
too limited. pl aC e, it is, by no means, generally agreed, in 
the communities where the experiment is in progress, that 
the result is auspicious. The conviction, on the part of 
many of the most trustworthy and thoughtful men, is that 
the actual result is unfavorable. But, again, if statistics 
should show no marked increase of crime during the few 
years since the experiment began, no positive inference 
can be drawn, favorable to the abolition of capital pun- 
ishment. The experiment is inadequate. It is made in 
communities where the public sentiment, in reference to 
murder, has been produced by the operation of the death 
penalty. More than one generation will be required to show 



PENALTIES IN CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 



distinctly the effect of any other system. In such a com- 
munity, if all penalties for murder were abrogated at once, 
the effect might not be immediately visible. It is not true 
that in such communities there are multitudes of persons 
intent on murder, and only restrained by fear of punish- 
ment ; but an inadequate penalty must in the end produce 
crime. The tree will finally be known by its fruit, but it 
may require generations to mature it. 

Objection is often made to public executions as demoral- 
izing, and the proof commonly adduced is, that such occa- 
sions gather the low and vile, who exhibit in Pub iicexecu- 
their demeanor a loathsome levity, rather tlons ' 
than the solemnity which befits the scene. But we must 
distinguish between the exhibition of wickedness, and 
the promotion of it. In all gatherings of the degraded, 
wickedness will appear, but this is no proof that the gath- 
ering is unprofitable. The solemn exhibition may profit 
even the degraded, and it may be profitable to the com- 
munity to know what vileness is hidden in its dark places. 
But if experience shall prove that public executions are 
corrupting, they can be dispensed with ; and the tendency 
at present is in that direction. The public announcement 
of the day and the hour, and, perhaps, the tolling of a bell, 
would give the needed publicity. One of the great ad- 
vantages of the death penalty is, that it does not need to 
be witnessed in order to be impressive. 

Another objection is, that so strong is the general feel- 
ing against capital punishment, that juries cannot be 
brought to convict even the manifestly guilty, Popular feel . 
because they shrink from the penalty that must ing a £ ainst lt - 
follow. A sure penalty, it is said, is better than a severe 
one that cannot be executed. 

Undoubtedly there has been an indisposition to inflict 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



capital punishment, and many a murderer has escaped in 
consequence ; and such a public sentiment may at length 
compel the adoption of another penalty. But it will be 
observed that this is no proper objection to the penalty 
itself. If the sentiment be a false one, let efforts be made 
to correct it. The crime which the sentiment will nourish, 
will, in the end, correct the sentiment, and the proper pen- 
alty will be invoked again. 

It is said, again, that the capital penalty is suited to a 
barbarous age, when less striking penalties would have 
a relic of little force, and that Christian civilization has 
barbansm. ma de men more sensitive to evil, so that 
milder penalties are sufficient. Thus there has been a 
constant tendency to mitigate penalties, and to make them 
less loathsome in form, and less severe in fact ; and the 
same movement continued will at length render capital 
punishment unnecessary, and bring about its abolition. 

We answer, if, in the progress of civilization, the bar- 
barous crime of murder shall become unknown, capital 
punishment will, of course, disappear, because not needed ; 
but as long as so much of barbarism remains that it is 
necessary to prohibit murder, let that penalty, which prop- 
erly represents the crime, sustain the prohibition. 

Objections like these, that " human life is inviolable," 
that " we have no right to take away what we cannot 



Frivolous 



restore," and that " capital punishment is the 
objections. perpetration of murder for the prevention of 
murder," are so utterly foundationless, as to require no an- 
swer. All objections must be essentially frivolous, except 
such as are urged against the necessity of capital pun- 
ishment. 

The employment of imprisonment as a penalty brings 
upon the government the duty of providing all available 



PENALTIES IN CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 1 7 1 

measures for the improvement and reformation of the crim- 
inal. This is the demand of common humanity on behalf 
of the criminal, who during the period of his imprisonment 
is dependent upon the government for all helpful influences 
from without. It is also necessary as a safeguard to the 
community, to prevent the formation of a criminal class 
who shall set themselves against the order and welfare of 
society. 



CHAPTER VI. 



LIMITS OF OBEDIENCE TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 

OBEDIENCE is to be rendered to all human governments, 
in subordination to the will of God. These governments 
Government are a recognized necessity, in the nature of the 
subordinate. cage ^ an( j th e i r existence is manifestly in ac- 
cordance with the divine will. Hence the presumption is 
always in favor of the authority of the civil law ; and any 
refusal to obey must be based on the moral proof that 
obedience will be sin. The one who proposes to disregard 
human law must be persuaded in his own mind that, in 
such a course, he will meet the approval of God. It is too 
obvious to need discussion, that the law of God, the great 
principle of benevolence, is supreme, and that " we ought 
to obey God rather than men," in any case of conflict 
between human law and the divine. 

This is the principle of the " higher law " doctrine, as it 
has been called in political circles in our land. The doc- 
Higheriaw. trine which has been maintained in opposition 

Lower law. tQ j n J ts j east 0 ff ens i ve f orni) that, as 

v the powers that be are ordained of God," obedience to 
human government is always obligatory, and in accordance 
with his will. This doctrine, pushed to its legitimate con- 
sequence, must imply that God has given to human gov- 
ernment authority to abrogate the divine law, and release 
men from obligation to God. Such absurdity proves the 
doctrine false. 

172 



LIMITS OF OBEDIENCE TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT. I 73 



A modification of the doctrine is maintained, as appli- 
cable to a democratic government, that as the people all 
have a voice in the making of the laws, they i na demo- 
must render obedience to every law, while it cratlc State> 
remains a law, using their influence, meanwhile, for the 
repeal of a wicked statute. The principle will not bear 
investigation. The voice of the people is not the voice 
of God, and we have no license to " go with the multitude 
to do evil." There is no power in a democratic majority 
to set aside personal obligation. The fact that the govern- 
ment is democratic, and that there is a mode in which 
every one can make his influence felt in setting right the 
wrong, has its force in rendering revolutionary movements 
unnecessary and improper; but the great law of personal 
duty must hold against all such considerations. Cases 
may arise, under any government, in which the individual 
conscience, which is but the judgment of duty, will require 
a course of action in opposition to the law. 

It would seem satisfactory if some general test could 
be presented, by which such cases of duty may be deter- 
mined ; but no general formula is possible. No general 
Each case must be settled in its own light, formula - 
and settled, too, by each interested person for himself. 
Two equally intelligent and conscientious men may pursue 
different courses, and both be not only subjectively, but 
objectively, right. What is duty to one, in the case, may 
not be duty to the other, because of their different rela- 
tions. The question is, like all questions of practical duty, 
to be decided in the light of the claims of benevolence, and 
the will of God. A few suggestions may not be amiss. 

It is manifest that all laws, requiring what is just and 
proper in itself, must be obeyed. These right j us tiawsto 
acts would be obligatory, if not enjoined by be obeyed. 



174 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



law, and the law affords an additional reason for their per- 
formance. This needs no proof. 

Acts indifferent in themselves cease to be so when re- 
quired or prohibited by human law. We are not to follow 
indifferent our own convenience or pleasure, against the 
also " naked authority of the law. The government 

is essential to the good of society, and it must be sustained 
at the sacrifice of personal preference, and even of personal 
interest. We are often bound to do as much as this, out 
of regard to the judgment or feelings of a neighbor; more 
is due to the influence and authority of the government. 
In a case of doubt, the law should have the benefit of the 
doubt. 

Laws which may properly be called unjust must some- 
times be obeyed. An improper or unequal tax, unless 
unjust at levied for immoral purposes, may, in general, 
times. De without hesitation. The interest of the 

subject is infringed upon, but it will not be secured by re- 
sistance to the law ; and even if it were, it is still better to 
make the sacrifice to the authority of the government. It 
is wrong for the government to levy an unjust tax, but it 
is not, therefore, wrong for the subject to pay it. It might 
be wrong for him to make such a payment if not required. 
Possible It 1S possible that human law should make 
effect. t j iat r ig n t which would be wrong without the 

law. The principle, sometimes announced, that " a law 
requiring what is wrong is no law," has its limitations,, and 
is true only in this sense, that what is wrong, even after 
it is required by law, cannot be binding by reason of the 
law — a manifest truism. The fact simply is, that govern- 
ment is an interest, as real as any other, an essential means 
to the general welfare, and that it is better to submit to 
some injustice rather than to interrupt the established 



LIMITS OF OBEDIENCE TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT. I 75 



order. For this reason an officer may collect a tax, which, 
in individual cases, he sees to be oppressive and unjust, 
rather than interrupt the regular operation of the laws. 
The degree of the injustice is an important element in 
the estimate of duty. The injustice may be so gross that 
the government would suffer more detriment in its per- 
mission than in the irregularity involved in its prevention. 
But in deciding upon duty, in reference to any act required 
or prohibited by the law, the fact of the law is to have 
weight ; and this will sometimes make proper what would 
otherwise have been wrong. 

After all these exceptions and allowances, it is still true 
that obedience to human law often involves sin against God 
and man. There are cases so clear that no one obedience 

sometimes 

can question the duty to refuse obedience. In wrong, 
all times and in all lands such cases have arisen. In a case 
of this kind, either of two courses is possible : to disobey 
the law, and resist the government in its at- Two courses 
tempt to execute it, or to disobey and quietly p° sslble - 
suffer the penalty. The first is revolutionary, and can be 
justified only when the case is flagrant, and affects such 
numbers that a revolutionary movement will be sustained. 
Sometimes a decided attitude, on the part of a large num- 
ber, in opposition to a wicked law, will set the law aside, 
and make it inoperative. Such a movement is as justifiable 
as any revolution. But these cases are rare. The second 
course will, in general, commend itself to considerate and 
conscientious men. It is a testimony against the law as 
unrighteous, and, at the same time, a recognition of govern- 
ment as a grave interest. It is not, however, duty to invite 
the penalty, or to expose one's self voluntarily to it, as a 
reparation for the harm done in violating a wicked law. 
We may escape the penalty by honorable concealment, or 



176 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



by some technicality, or by flight, according to the Saviour's 
advice to the disciples, " If they persecute you in one city, 
flee ye to another." All such devices are to be preferred 
to a violent resistance of the penalty. Violence is com- 
monly mischievous. 

The duty of subordinate officers and magistrates, execut- 
ing the laws under a higher authority, sometimes involves 
Duty of a doubt. They are not relieved from all per- 
subordinate. sonal responsibility, at liberty to do whatever 
is enjoined upon them, without inquiry. The wickedness 
of a wicked law is not confined to the legislative power, 
but extends to all who knowingly share in its execution. 
In ordinary cases, a sheriff or a soldier may do without 
question what he is bidden to do ; but if there be manifest 
wickedness in the transaction, or ground to apprehend that 
there is, the subordinate must judge of his duty for himself, 
and act on his own responsibility. He cannot shift the 
burden from himself to his superiors. They must answer 
for their duty, and he must answer for his. 

It is maintained by some, that in all cases of a conscien- 
tious inability to execute the law, the subordinate must 
Must he retire from his office, and, of course, leave it to 
resign? ^ Q occupied by one who will perpetrate the 

wrong. This is by no means a manifest duty. Let him 
retain his place, and withstand the injustice, while he can. 
Such an extension of responsibility is an important safe- 
guard against tyranny. But for this principle of personal 
responsibility, extending to inferior courts and magistrates, 
all the checks in the exercise of power are removed, and a 
government like ours is subordinated to the control of the 
supreme court. The custom of inferior courts to follow the 
decisions of the higher courts, instead of judging each case 
on its own merits, is sometimes a questionable surrender 



LIMITS OF OBEDIENCE TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT. I 77 



of personal responsibility. It may be a higher wisdom to 
discard the unrighteous precedent, and, in a new case, to 
"judge righteous judgment," laying upon the higher court 
the responsibility of reversing it. 

When a government becomes inefficient or corrupt, and 
the constitutional means of remedy fail, the people have, at 
times, a right, if they can, to supply the de- Extraordinary 
ficiency, or correct the wrong, by extraordi- measures - 
nary means. The necessity is a painful one, and the 
experiment is always hazardous, but the emergency may 
justify it. A resort to violence in rectifying the abuses of 
the government always tends to disorganization, and it is 
difficult to arrest the movement at the proper point ; but 
the concurrent judgment of the friends of public order will 
sometimes warrant the undertaking. The " vigilance com- 
mittee " of San Francisco, in 1856, has been cited as an 
example of justifiable and successful interference with the 
operations of government. 

When a government becomes a tyranny, and fails to do 
its essential work, it is the right of the people to break it 
down, if they can, and institute a better. This Right of 
is the right of revolution. It is based on the evolution, 
principle that government rests, for its lawful authority, 
upon the interests of the governed. A manifest and utter 
failure to secure these interests annuls its right to exist. 
It matters not what the form of the government may be ; 
the right of revolution pertains to all forms, after all consti- 
tutional remedies have been applied in vain. The dangers, 
and difficulties, and probabilities of success are to be bal- 
anced, as far as may be, and a revolution undertaken when 
the circumstances justify it. An attempt to set right, by 
violent means, a great wrong in government, is wise, and 
right, if there be reasonable hope of success ; if not, it may 



i ;8 



MORAL SCIENXE. 



be folly and madness. We sometimes admire the daring 
and heroism of the man who dashes himself against an 
obstacle that, to all human calculation, is immovable. He 
may have some inward light that justifies and sustains him 
in the encounter, and the result may show that the wisdom 
which guided him was more than human. Such cases are 
exceptional, and lie beyond the range of ordinary rules of 
duty. 

A revolution is justified where the interests of the gov- 
erned require it. This is the ground and limit of the right, 
whenjusti- The f ac t that men desire it for their pleasure 
fiabie. or or ambition, is no justification of it. 

It is not the will of any number that makes it right, but 
their real wants. Nor will the interests of a few justify a 
resort to violence, nor a trifling interest of many. The 
remedy for such inconsiderable imperfections in govern- 
ment, is in moral effort, light, and persistence, and time. 
An attempt at revolution, without sufficient reason, is re- 
bellion, and the result does not change the character of the 
undertaking. 

It is often urged that the right of private judgment, as 
now maintained, in reference to obedience to the laws of 
objections the land, will subvert government, and intro- 
anarchy. duce confusion and anarchy. Whatever dan- 
ger there may be in this direction, is to be properly consid- 
ered, and provided for as far as may be ; but the right and 
duty of meeting one's own convictions of conscience still 
remain, and government must get on with the difficulty as 
well as it can. The danger, however, is greatly overesti- 
mated. Government is never the gainer in the execution 
of a law that is manifestly unjust. It may set forth the 
strength of the government in mere physical force, but 
there is a loss which more than counterbalances, in the 



LIMITS OF OBEDIENCE TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT. I 79 



diminished respect and confidence of the people. That 
loss may be in part averted by a conscientious refusal to 
obey such a law, or by a quiet interruption of its execution 
by a private citizen or an officer. Strength in injustice, on 
the part of government, is not strength, but weakness. 

Conscientious men are not the enemies, but the friends, 
of any government but a tyranny. They are its strength, 
and not its weakness. Daniel, in Babylon, praying con- 
trary to the law, was the true friend and supporter of the 
government ; while those who, in their pretended zeal for 
the law and the constitution, would strike down the good 
man, were its real enemies. It is only when government 
transcends its sphere, that it comes in conflict with the con- 
sciences of men. 

But it is objected that the example is corrupting — that 
a bad man will violate a good law, because the good man 
refuses to obey a wicked law. The cases are Example 
just as unlike as right and wrong; and any harmful, 
attempt to justify the one by the other is gross dishonesty. 
Unquestionably, the principle can be abused by the wicked, 
and so can any truth whatever ; but the principle of un- 
questioning obedience to human law is false, and needs no 
perversion to make it mischievous. Practically, the cases 
are few, in well-established governments, where the law 
encroaches upon the rights of conscience; but if the prin- 
ciple be surrendered, the cases will multiply. Obedience 
is, of course, the rule, and disobedience the rare exception. 

It should always be remembered, that the great end of 
government is human well-being — that law and authority 
are nothing in themselves, and that all their End of gov _ 
sacredness arises from the uses which they ernment- 
serve. The machinery of government is valuable only for 
the work it does ; in itself, it has no value. It is better 



i8o 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



that the just result should be brought out, even at the 
expense of a little jostling of the visible machinery. The 
vital power of government is not so much in its outward 
adjustments, as in the hold it has upon the respect and 
confidence of men ; and that hold is proportioned to its 
effectiveness for good, rather than to the regularity of the 
outward working. Both are desirable, but one is neces- 
sary. The true estimate of government lies between two 
errors. Jurists and legislators — those who are 

Two errors. . . . t 

chiefly occupied with the torms ana processes 
of government, are liable to overestimate these forms. The 
machinery comes to have, to.their thought, a value in itself, 
and they learn to depend upon its perfect working. Any ir- 
regular operation or friction is cause of grave apprehension. 
They fail to see that the most grievous of all imperfections 
in government is the failure to secure the just and good re- 
sult, and that injustice and oppression are not made tolerable 
by being in strict accordance with the law. Nothing is surer, 
in the end, than the reaction of such wrong to break down 
the most perfectly constituted government. On the other 
hand, if the general welfare is carefully provided for, even 
with some irregularities in the working, the government 
will grow strong in the midst of convulsions which would 
shatter any government the strength of which was in its 
perfect operation. The other error is on the part of those 
who have little thought of forms and organizations, and 
whose chief attention is directed to the outcome. They 
undervalue the importance of established arrangements, and 
would accept almost any irregularity with the promise of 
immediate good. They fail to observe that the novelty 
which serves them to-day may to-morrow prove their 
enemy ; and that the steadiness and regularity which 
seemed to work to their disadvantage is their surest re- 



LIMITS OF OBEDIENCE TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 1 8 I 



liance. In its best forms, human government will be im- 
perfect ; and it is often better to tolerate the imperfections, 
than to peril the general good by any rash attempt at 
readjustment. For the settlement of all these questions, 
science furnishes no universal formula. Every emergency 
brings with it the best light for the guidance of those who 
are to meet it. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE RELATIONS OF NATIONS TO EACH OTHER. 

THE various nations of the earth, through their govern- 
ments, act upon each other, and affect each other's welfare, 
obligation these relations they come under the great 

of nations. j aw Q £ benevolence, as really as individuals. 
A nation can have no more right to act without regard to 
the welfare of other nations, or to promote its own advan- 
tage at the sacrifice of their interests, than persons have, 
in similar circumstances, to disregard each other. 

The relations of nations are, comparatively, few and re- 
mote. In the present state of the world national jealousies 
obligation are so P rom pt and general that comparatively 
limited. little can be done by governments to help each 

other. The proposal on the part of one nation to help 
another would often be regarded with suspicion, and be a 
source of weakness instead of strength. The government 
accepting such help would sometimes endanger its own 
existence. Hence, to a great extent, the action of nations 
upon one another is, necessarily, of a negative character, 
leaving one another to pursue the path of interest without 
obstruction, giving here and there such countenance and 
support as may be possible. The law of benevolence still 
holds, and the nation should acknowledge its claims, as 
well as the individual. 

Among civilized nations certain habits of propriety and 
comity have been established, which are recognized as the 
laws of nations. There is no recognized authority to de- 

182 



THE RELATIONS OF NATIONS TO EACH OTHER. 1 83 



fine or execute these laws ; but the nation which con- 
travenes a well-established principle of intercourse will 
find its violent dealing returning upon itself, in Laws of 
the treatment it receives from other nations. nations. 
These established principles, so far as they go, are an ap- 
proach to the law of benevolence in the case, but they are 
often very imperfect expressions of it. The constant inter- 
course of nations, and their progress in Christian civilization, 
will effect a clearer definition and an extension of these 
laws ; meanwhile, it is the duty of every nation to conform 
its conduct to the requirements of benevolence, and to re- 
spect the interests of other nations, even beyond the de- 
mands of recognized international law. 

Nations are bound to respect one another's sovereignty. 
The people of the world are arranged under separate gov- 
ernments, and their welfare depends upon this No right 
separate national existence. No nation can to absorb - 
have the right to assume the control of another people, 
setting aside its government, and absorbing into itself its 
resources and powers. Such a centralization of the powers 
of government would no more conduce to the general wel- 
fare than would the assumption on the part of the strong 
of control over the weak, in personal relations. A nation 
.acquires no such right by the conquest 'of another people in 
a just war, except, in a possible case, where the existence 
of the conquered people, as a separate nation, is a nuisance 
to themselves and their neighbors. 

Nor can one nation have a right to render another de- 
pendent upon itself, and tributary. The weak may be 
naturally dependent upon the strong, and may Grmake 
be under obligation to make return for the tributary, 
help they receive, as in the case of two individuals ; but no 
nation can have a right to demand of another contributions 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



of men or money for its own advantage. Such a practice 
does not differ, in its morality, from robbery. 

It may be the duty of one nation to aid another, when 
its existence is threatened by violence, provided the rela- 
tions are such that the proffer will be a real 

Duty to aid. 

help. The obligation is the same as in the case 
of individuals — to help those that need ; the power to help 
is more limited, because of national jealousies, and the dan- 
ger that what is intended as help may prove a hindrance. 

In cases of unwarrantable rebellion, it is the duty of sur- 
rounding nations to give their countenance and moral sup- 
Duty in port, at least, to the lawful authorities of the 
rebellion. distracted country ; and it is a gross failure in 
public morality to exhibit such sympathy, or permit such 
support to rebels, as will tend to overthrow the govern- 
ment, or prolong the contest. The nation that fails to re- 
spond to such obligations must at length reap the fruits of 
its own misdoing. 

In all treaties and arrangements for national intercourse, 
it is duty to aim at mutual benefit. Any attempt to get 
Duty in tne advantage in such a transaction is as dis- 

treaties. honorable as in personal matters ; and any 
exultation over a one-sided treaty is rejoicing over dishon- 
esty. The only proper aim of diplomacy is to secure an 
equal and honorable adjustment of all questions of interest ; 
and a resort to concealment or chicaner}', in any form, is 
as contemptible as in personal intercourse. Questions of 
territorial lines, and other interests, between neighboring 
nations, should be settled with the same magnanimous re- 
spect for each other's rights and views as in the case of two 
neighbors. The wish or aim to encroach upon the domain 
of another nation is palpable selfishness and injustice. A 
readiness to enter into all treaties promotive of the general 



THE RELATIONS OF NATIONS TO EACH OTHER. 1 85 



welfare, and to abide by treaties when formed, is as mani- 
festly the duty of nations, as a similar spirit on the part of 
individuals. 

All restrictions of commerce, and of intercourse between 
nations, must be regulated by the requirements of benevo- 
lence. Each nation is bound to favor the trade In commercial 
and commerce of other nations, to the extent intercourse - 
of the common welfare. A nation cannot be bound to 
sacrifice its own essential prosperity for the sake of foster- 
ing the commerce of another nation. It is the privilege of 
a nation to restrict its trade with others, by any necessary 
impediments, when its own good requires, as a family may 
limit its purchases when its own good demands. A tariff 
of duties on importations or exportations, to limit, or even 
to prohibit, trade in certain things, and at certain times, 
is not, necessarily, an immorality. The only self-evident 
principle of morality that applies to the case is the universal 
duty of benevolence. 

The obligation resting upon any particular nation to re- 
ceive immigrants from other lands to its supposed superior 
advantages and opportunities has, of course, its 

...... -|— * . . Immigration. 

reasonable limitations. Every nation is in- 
trusted with the problem of its own existence and prosper- 
ity, and must decide what it can safely undertake for the 
relief of other needy people. 

Since vast interests depend upon the maintenance of the 
organic existence of the State, it is the duty of nations to 
protect themselves, and the interests which Duty of self 
depend upon them. This involves the right- P reservation - 
fulness of war — the use of whatever force may be necessary 
for self-protection, and the defense of the interests at stake. 
This right of self-preservation is involved in the right of a 
government to exist. A nation thus maintaining its exist- 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



ence is contending not merely for its own immediate inter- 
ests, but for the common right upon which all governments 
must stand. Take away this right, and governments have 
practically no authority. 

It is generally conceded, even by those who deny the 
rightfulness of war under any circumstances, that a gov- 
Generai con- ernment must have the right to execute its own 
cession. j ug ^ j aws jf resistance is offered to the exe- 

cution of them, it must be put down, or government is at an 
end. If a mob interferes, the mob must be quelled, at any 
necessary sacrifice of life ; otherwise government is impos- 
sible. If the resistance grows into an insurrection, it must 
still be suppressed, and all the appliances of power neces- 
sary for the work may be freely brought to bear. If such 
a manifestation and use of power is war, then war on the 
part of a government, in the execution of its wholesome 
laws, is right. 

But it is said by those who accord to government this 
right to put down resistance to its own authority, and still 
objection to deny the rightfulness of war, that such a use 

the name. Q f p Qwer j s nQ \- war • t na £ an arm y raised foV 

such purposes is only the police force of the country en- 
gaged in its legitimate work of enforcing the laws. The 
name is not much, but the principle is important. What- 
ever the work be called, it is lawful for a government to 
maintain itself, and the interests it protects, by any neces- 
sary force, and at any necessary sacrifice of life, against any 
violence from within. 

Is it not evident that the same right exists for a gov- 
ernment to protect itself, and the depending interests, 
against any violence from without? If there be any dif- 
ference in the two cases, the latter is the stronger. Violence 
from within may indicate a weakness in the government, a 



THE RELATIONS OF NATIONS TO EACH OTHER. 1 87 



failure to meet the necessities of the people f and what is 
called a rebellion may be a justifiable revolution. There 
is no such presumption in the case of the at- Aggression 
tack from without ; and must the nation yield from without - 
to the violence and submit to the overthrow of its institu- 
tions and interests, when it has power to prevent it ? Only 
a direct revelation to this effect could warrant the improb- 
able conclusion, and we have no such revelation. War, 
then, carried on by a useful government for its own exist- 
ence, is not wrong on the part of that government. 

Nor can it be reasonably questioned, that a strong nation 
may be bound to defend, even by war, a weak nation un- 
justly attacked. In most cases a simple pro- Dutytoward 
test, or warning, would prove sufficient; but aweaknation - 
the force of the protest lies in the fact that war impends 
if it is disregarded. Then, again, a nation may be bound 
to punish or crush a power that indulges in piracy and rob- 
bery, and becomes the common enemy of mankind. Thus 
our government broke the power of the pirati- Toward a 
cal states of Northern Africa, and delivered the P iratical one - 
nations from their aggressions — a work of benevolence and 
mercy. In a similar way the leading Christian nations 
have combined to prevent the slave-trade, by ships of war 
stationed on the coast of Africa. 

An oppressed people may have the right to overthrow 
a tyrannous government and establish a better, even at the 
expense of war. The war will involve great War for rev _ 
calamities, but these may be accepted in pref- olutlon - 
erence to injustice and oppression. The sentiment attrib- 
uted to the Irish patriot Daniel, O'Connell, that " no 
political change is worth one drop of human blood," is not 
sustained, either by reason or by history. Many of the 
privileges of civilized society have been bought with blood, 



i88 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



and we could better afford to pay the price again than to 

part with them. 

It is sometimes asked, If one nation sustains obligations 

of benevolence to another, may it not be the duty of a 

case of cor- powerful, civilized people to put down a cor- 
rupt govern- 
ment, rupt government, and give a better one to an 

oppressed people, or to restore peace where civil discord 
prevails? An intervention of this kind is, in general, un- 
profitable. A stable and free government can only come 
from within — the result of forces in the nation itself. Any 
force from without will prove a disturbance rather than a 
help. A settlement resulting from such a force is not 
permanent, and will show its instability when the external 
force is removed. When long-continued civil strife in a 
nation interferes with the quiet and prosperity of other 
nations, these nations may have the right to compel its 
cessation. The propriety of the intervention will depend 
upon the probable result. 

The question, Is war right or wrong ? admits of no direct 
answer, because war is not a simple moral act. There are 
No direct always two parties concerned, sustaining very 
answer. different relations to the war. It is not rare 

that both parties are guilty of wrong, and that either 
might have prevented the war by an honorable course ; 
but it is evident that one party may be the aggressor, and 
that the other may be acting merely in self-defense. It 
is preposterous to state the question of the rightfulness of 
war in such a way as to overlook this difference of position. 

When a nation is unjustly attacked, the presumption is 
The presump- tnat ^ nas a right to repel the violence, and 
tlon ' prevent the injustice and injury, by such force 

as may be required. If this right is called in question, it 
must be on the ground that such resistance is wrong in its 



THE RELATIONS OE NATIONS TO EACH OTHER. 1 89 



own nature, or that it is directly prohibited by the law of 
God, or that there is a better way to prevent the injury. 

If national self-defense is wrong in its own nature, it 
is because it is unbenevolent. If it be inconsistent with 
benevolence, it is, of course, wrong. That it is opposed to 
unbenevolent is maintained on two grounds: benevolence, 
first, because it necessarily involves an unbenevolent heart 
in those who share in the war. Benevolence is love, a dis- 
position to benefit and bless ; and this is due toward enemies 
as well as friends. War involves violence and evil toward 
enemies. True, and so does the punishment of crime, by 
fine or imprisonment, or death. But the highest benevo- 
lence requires the punishment of crime, and the officer of 
justice performs a benevolent act in inflicting the penalty. 
It is just as consistent with a benevolent heart as an act 
of charity or mercy. To save a nation from threatened 
danger is an act of benevolence, and the patriotism which 
leads one to risk his life for his country is one of the noblest 
forms of virtue. It springs naturally and necessarily from 
love to God and love to man, and involves no hatred toward 
the enemy, even in the very act which causes his death. 
The responsibility of the act is to be accepted as a stern 
and awful duty, like the execution of the sentence of the 
law upon a criminal. In such a spirit men may, and do, 
engage in war. 

But, secondly, it is urged that the evils of war are so 
great as to prove that war is " contrary to the order of 
nature," and therefore wrong. But the evils of The evils 
injustice and oppression and outrage are also so great, 
great, and unless it can be shown that national resistance 
to unjust aggression increases the evils of the world, the 
argument from the evils of war has no force. The evils 
of w r ar are manifold and frightful to contemplate. They 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



come in such forms, and are so concentrated, as to be ap- 
preciable to the dullest apprehension ; but the evils of tyr- 
anny and oppression and national degradation, though less 
striking in form, affect the character and condition of every 
individual, and endure through generations. The general 
judgment of men has been that war is sometimes to be pre- 
ferred to these evils, and the result has often justified the 
judgment. The punishment of crime involves great evils, 
but to leave it unpunished involves greater ; and no one 
could urge the horrors of the prison and the scaffold as an 
argument against the punishment of crime. 

That defensive war is prohibited by divine command 
does not appear, unless the general requirement of love to 
Divinely enemies, and the exhortation not to resist evil, 
forbidden. be taken as such a prohibition. But if these 

prohibit war in self-defense, they equally prohibit the in- 
fliction of any evil in punishment of crime. This interpre- 
tation is manifestly too sweeping, and is in conflict with 
the whole tenor of Scripture and with sound reason. The 
love due to mankind is not opposed to the infliction of any 
evil which the good of mankind requires. These general 
precepts can be brought to bear against defensive war only 
by showing that it is not necessary to the good of mankind. 

That there is a better way to avert the evils which war 
is employed to remedy is maintained on different grounds. 

First, it is said that God will protect a people 

A better way. ... . . ~kt i i * i 

that commit their cause to him. Ao doubt he 
will ; but he works by means, and the means he has been 
accustomed to employ for the protection of his people are 
Divine pro- their courage and strength, inspired and sus- 
tection. tained by his own presence and power. He 

enables " one to chase a thousand, and two to put ten 
thousand to flight." What right have we to trust him for 



THE RELATIONS OF NATIONS TO EACH OTHER. 1 9 1 



deliverance, while we decline to use the means which he 

provides? God's view of such remissness is expressed in 

the curse pronounced on those who "came not up to the 

help of the Lord against the mighty." Unless we have 

explicit warrant to forbear such effort, our faith becomes 

presumption. The argument assumes, at the outset, that 

any effort at self-protection is displeasing to God — the very 

point to be proved. 

Again, it is maintained that an exhibition of the gospel 

spirit of non-resistance to threatened violence will disarm 

the enemy, and turn him back from his pur- Non-resist- 
ance effica- 

pose. This argument also assumes that an cious. 
attitude of non-resistance is the right and proper attitude, 
that which the highest benevolence requires. Until this 
be proved, there is little encouragement to take the posi- 
tion; and if it be the proper attitude, there is little ground 
to expect absolute safety from violence in it. There would 
be safety in the final outcome, as there always is in the 
way of duty. But the proof is wanting that this is the 
path of duty. 

Again, it is urged that reason and good sense would 
suffice to settle all international difficulties, without a re- 
sort to war. This is true, beyond all question ; Good sense 
but the difficulty is to bring an aggressive and 1S sufficient - 
ambitious nation to use reason and good sense. It is not 
clear that reason and good sense on one side alone will 
secure the desired end ; and if these fail, there remains the 
right to repel aggression. The triumph of reason and good 
sense in the world will bring the end of war, and of every 
crime as well — a result for which we are to labor and to 
pray ; and among the essential means of hastening the 
good time is the prevention and punishment of crime 
within the State by governmental force, and the prevention 



192 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



and punishment of aggression from without by a wise and 
benevolent use of the power of the nation. 

To render wars unnecessary, and to bring into disuse the 
whole system of military and naval equipment, should be 
one of the first aims of every enlightened na- 

The true aim. . 

tion. For rational and successful labor in this 
direction, it is not necessary to adopt the false principle of 
the wrongfulness of war in every possible case. All ag- 
gression and injustice is wrong, and the suppression of this 
will " make wars to cease unto the ends of the earth." A 
readiness to settle international difficulties by mutual con- 
ference and concession, or by arbitration, is one of the 
highest duties of the nation ; and a resort to arms for the 
gratification of malice, or pride, or ambition, or for national 
aggrandizement, or for any unworthy reason, is the great- 
est of crimes. Public morality in this matter has already 
made great advances, but much still remains to be done. 
The war spirit, as it sometimes exists in a nation, in both 
government and people, is the spirit of demons, a u kind 
that goeth not out, but by prayer and fasting." 

When a nation engages in a righteous war, all the re- 
quirements of benevolence, in the treatment of prisoners, in 
the recognition of the rights of non-combat- 

Duties in war. . ... c . . 

ants, and m the mitigation of the calamities of 
war in general, are still in force. When the just object of 
the war is accomplished, it must cease, and no advantage 
must be taken from the victory to injure, or even to hu- 
miliate, unnecessarily, the offending nation. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



FAMILY GOVERNMENT. 

THE family organization involves, among other interests, 
that of government. This is, perhaps, not the most promi- 
nent feature, or the highest interest, in the Government 
family constitution, but it is essential, and the in the family - 
ends of the organization cannot be attained without it. 
The necessity for government, and the objects of it, are, 
in general, the same as in civil society : social order, and 
the advantage and welfare of every member. The right, 
on the one hand, to govern, and the duty of obedience, on 
the other, rest on the same foundation : ability to secure 
the interests of the family, and the need of direction and 
control. 

The limits of the family, in respect to the persons em- 
braced, are determined by the nature of the case. The 
parents and their children, and other persons Limited in 
who find their home in the household, con- numbers, 
stitute the family, and share in its rights and duties. 

The limits of the government, in respect to the interests 
embraced, are much wider than in civil government. 
Everything that affects the welfare of the child, wider in 
the regulation of his conduct, the cultivation of interests, 
his mind and heart, the employment of his time, and the 
establishment of relations with general society, falls within 
the domain of family government ; because, in all these 
things, the child needs the supervision and control of the 

i§3 



194 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



parent. The right of the parent to control the child in all 
these relations is limited only by the welfare of the family. 
He has a right to govern so far as the good of the house- 
hold requires, not at all for his own pleasure, or under the 
promptings of any passion. 

The constitution of the family, like most other constitu- 
tions, is determined by the nature of the case. It is not 
Mode of con- properly a social compact, except as to the 
stitution. determination of the two parties that lay the 
foundations of the family, and perhaps in some other sub- 
ordinate interests. The original organization of the family 
is strictly matter of independent agreement. The parties 
are perfectly free to enter into the arrangement, or to de- 
cline it ; but once having entered into the marriage rela- 
tion, they have their general rights and duties assigned 
them, by a law above their will. Nothing can be right or 
duty to either party which benevolence does not permit or 
require. 

Unity of interest and of action is essential to the family 
welfare ; and in order to unity, there must be a head. 
Question of There is little room for doubt that the man 
headship. ^ by naturej indicated as the head of the 
house. The evidence is too patent to require presentation. 
Even if there be entire equality in intellectual endowments, 
still, the physical constitutions and liabilities of the sexes 
would alone determine the matter, and mankind have in 
general accepted this determination. Nature and revela- 
tion are equally explicit. The man is the head of the 
house, in the nature of the case, and only some special 
imbecility can set him aside. 

This condition of things is not the result of any special 
agreement, nor can any agreeement greatly modify the re- 
lation. It is not necessary that the dutv of subordination 



FAMILY GOV E RX M EXT. 



195 



should be acknowledged by the wife, in the marriage cov- 
enant. The duty is involved in the relation itself, and 
depends on no promise for its existence. It p rov idedfor 
will not rarely happen that the welfare of the in nature - 
family will depend upon the clearer judgment and stronger 
character of the wife; but, even then, true delicacy and 
the highest decorum would suggest that she should direct 
affairs through the husband, as the prime-minister governs 
England through the queen. The stronger character will 
inevitably control, but this should not disturb the natural 
order of the household. There may not be, on either side, 
the consciousness, even, that the power is not where it 
seems to be, and the world has no concern in it. But if 
the man is so contemptible, by vice, or any imbecility, that 
he cannot stand in his place, the woman must take upon 
herself the headship of the family, in form as well as in 
fact. 

The view sometimes urged in opposition to this, is, that 
in nature there is no precedence on either side, that the 
man and the woman constitute the " united opposing 
head," and that they are equal in the family view " 
government. There is truth in this view of the relation, 
and somewhat of error. To the children, the will of each 
parent is law. " Honor thy father and thy mother " is the 
universal doctrine of Scripture, and the dictate of good 
sense. But if the parents are equal in authority, in their 
relation to each other, there may be a conflict of parental 
will, which will destroy the government of the family. To 
set aside the danger of such collision, it is made the duty 
of one to yield in the final issue. As a matter of propriety 
and courtesy, to forestall the slightest approach to a col- 
lision, it is the duty of either to yield to the wishes of the 
other, a duty which probably devolves upon the husband 



MURAL SCIENCE 



oftener than upon the wife. But if there should occur the 
misfortune of a trial of authority, the woman is to recognize 
the head of the house, and honor the divine appointment, 
as indicated in nature and in revelation. 

But is it not better that the parties should enter the re- 
lation upon equal terms, and find their place, in reference 
to each other, as a result of their mutual 

Another view. . ... 

acquaintance and their experience? If that 
arrangement had been better, the two sexes should have 
been constituted with equal endowments, physical and in- 
tellectual, and neither should have been rendered depend- 
ent upon the other, by any delicacy of constitution, or 
liability of condition. But, even in such case, the relation 
could not have been as happy. It is not desirable that, at 
the outset, it should be an open question which of the two 
shall be the head of the house — a question to be settled by 
some trial of force or will, or provided for in advance by 
mutual contract. 

It is better that all such questions should be set aside, 
by indications so marked that there is no ground for hesi- 
wisdom of tation. That there should be more of strength 
ment. on one side, and more of delicacy and depend- 

ence on the other, exalts the relation of marriage, and 
changes it from a mere business copartnership to a divine 
institution, the conditions of which are not determined by 
mutual agreement, but by the nature of the case. Any 
attempt to render it, by mutual contract, essentially differ- 
ent from what it is in nature, must fail. It is no mere 
human arrangement of which the Saviour says: <( Have ye 
not read, that he which made them at the beginning, made 
them male and female ? and said, For this cause shall a 
man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, 
and they twain shall be one flesh, wherefore they are no 



FAMILY GOVERNMENT. 



197 



more twain, but one flesh. What, therefore, God hath 
joined together, let not man put asunder." Any concep- 
tion of marriage as a mere business arrangement, between 
two similar and independent parties, must fall infinitely 
below this divine ideal. But nature is stronger than a false 
idea, and the truth will maintain itself in the world against 
any false philosophy. 

The marriage union, provided for by this divine con- 
stitution, is one of confidence and trust and mutual favor. 
It may sometimes be wise to adjust subordinate A relation of 
interests, affecting the relations of the parties confidence, 
to others, in matters of property and the like, by a mar- 
riage settlement ; but, in general, it is the higher wisdom 
to allow all interests to adjust themselves, under the natural 
operation of the marriage union. The civil law may inter- 
vene, here and there, to determine some of the remoter 
limits of the rights and duties involved, but in general it 
is too rough a force to be intrusted with the regulation of 
such relations. Society has an interest in the prosperity of 
the family, and has a right to protect itself against the bur- 
dens and immoralities which must result from its dissolu- 
tion. Hence, law naturally comes in to prescribe the rough 
* outlines of duty, when mutual confidence and affection fail. 

Such being the nature of the marriage union, implying 
a common life and destiny, a unity of interest, justifying 
the bold figure of the early and the later revela- To be entered 

1 1 1 1 r 11 • upon delib- 

tion, it should not be iormed at the prompting erateiy. 
of impulse or passion, nor without the most serious purpose 
to meet its responsibilities. No man can have a right to 
propose marriage with a woman with whom he cannot en- 
ter heartily upon the earnest work of life, with a satisfac- 
tory assurance that she will help him to become all that he 
is capable of, in excellence and duty, and that he can help 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



her to be what she needs to be, as a social and rational 
being. No woman can have a right to accept the proposal 
of any man whose character she cannot respect, whose 
honor she cannot trust, and to whose wisdom she cannot 
cheerfully yield, in any serious difference of judgment. 

When the union is once consummated, it must be care- 
fully maintained. Although a natural relation, it will not 
Maintained ta ^ e care °f itself. There is constant oppor- 
with care. tunity for mutual forbearance, and thoughtful- 
ness, and concession, and confidence, and love, a tender- 
ness toward each other's infirmities, a care for each other's 
convenience and comfort, an appreciation of each other's 
burdens and trials ; the husband " giving honor unto the 
wife, as unto the weaker vessel " — weaker as respects the 
delicacy of her organization, and dependent by the condi- 
tions of her sex ; the wife respecting her husband, and 
putting him in the place which belongs to him before the 
world. Any occasion for the display of authority, or even 
the thought of it, between the two, is offensive and odious. 

There is a natural sphere, where each has the precedence, 
and each should there respect the other's prerogative. The 
Regard for wife is the proper mistress of the home ; and, 
position. within all reasonable limits, should be left to 
order its internal arrangements according to her own judg- 
ment and taste. The husband is the natural representative 
of the family in its relations to general society, and out- 
door affairs naturally fall to him. Each may counsel and 
aid the other, and mutual deference is always in place ; 
but for one party to intrude upon the other's domain, in 
the way of control, involves the degradation of both. 
These and similar considerations -are perhaps too obvious 
to require suggestion, but the importance of the relation- 
ship will warrant the brief reference. 



FAMILY GOVERNMENT. 



The relations of the family to civil society and the outer 
world are not so much individual as organic. Its duties 
to society, and its participation in public opera- Relation to 
tions, are all subordinate to the unity of the the State ' 
family. Its voice in public affairs is naturally expressed 
through its head. He represents not himself, but the fam- 
ily. The claims upon the family for public service fall im- 
mediately upon him, but actually upon the organic unit}". 
He responds to the claim of the government for financial 
support, for service in office and in war. The family is 
known in civilized society by his name, and its property is 
recognized as his ; not because he may use it for his own 
pleasure, or personal advantage, but because, before the 
world, he is the agent of the family, and, with some limita- 
tions, manages and disposes of its property. All these and 
similar arrangements subserve the family interests, and 
conduce to its organic unity and life. If the individual 
members of the family had each an independent relation 
to general society, uttering an individual voice Relation to 
in public affairs, filling a separate place in pub- society, 
lie office and duty, and recognized as controlling separate 
interests, the organic life of the family would be feeble and 
comparatively valueless. In all the efforts to improve the 
relations of the individual to society, the interests of the 
family should not be forgotten. Every other organization, 
civil or ecclesiastical, is secondary in importance to the 
family ; and all other valuable organizations flourish in 
proportion as a wholesome foundation for the family is 
secured. 



CHAPTER IX. 



DUTIES OF PARENT AND CHILD — OF TEACHER 
AND PUPIL. 

The institution of the family contemplates, as its chief 
object, the proper training of children. For this work 
chief work of family government exists, and it is always to 
the family. ^ exerc i sec [ w ith reference to this end. The 
child is made dependent upon the parent, during many 
years, to afford opportunity for parental authority and in- 
fluence to mold the character of the child, and fit him for 
the responsibilities of life. This end determines the direc- 
tion, and defines the limits, of parental authority. The 
child is to be controlled just so far as his good requires, or 
for the common benefit of the household. The form and 
spirit of this control are almost whclly determined by the 
parents. The responsibility is a most sacred trust, and 
should be accepted and discharged with conscientious 
fidelity to the interests of the child. 

Parental affection, a powerful instinct, has been provided 
as a necessary check upon parental authority, and a stimu- 
piace of lus to parental duty. Such control as parents 
affection. naturally have over the child would be unsafe 
without this tempering element. Authority softened by 
love loses its repulsive character, and becomes to the child 
a fountain of good. There is nothing he more needs than 
a kindly and beneficent control — a will to limit his free- 
dom, guided by wisdom and affection. Authority without 

200 



DUTIES OF PARENT AND CHILD. 



20I 



affection is popularly, though often erroneously, supposed 
to characterize the lot of foster-children and step-children. 
The most scrupulous conscientiousness cannot make up for 
the absence of parental love. On the other hand, the in- 
stinctive affection equally requires the balance of conscien- 
tious wisdom. Mere tenderness toward the child will as 
surely miscarry as stern authority. Benevolence is the 
comprehensive duty of the parent — a blending of wisdom 
and love. This proper balancing of forces is divinely pro 7 
vided for in the union of the different elements of character 
found in the father and the mother. The resultant is a 
more wholesome force than either element alone. 

The duty of parents to provide for their children, and 
secure for them a favorable entrance upon the responsi- 
bilities of life, is second to no other duty. 

„ , i • i r i Leading duty. 

Parental fondness or pride often perverts the 
judgment, and craves for children ease instead of useful- 
ness, social position instead of character, and wealth instead 
of goodness. The highest blessings which children can 
inherit, it is in the power of all parents to provide ; and 
earnest fidelity to the interests of the child can scarcely fail 
to furnish him with the best of outfits — cheerful hopes, 
noble principles, and a fair reputation. The combined re- 
sources of wealth and wisdom and position can accomplish 
nothing more. 

The duty of obedience on the part of the child arises, as 
we have seen, from his need of guidance and control, and 
must continue while this necessity continues. Dutyofobe- 

dience, and 

The law of the land wisely prescribes the age its limit, 
at which the child may assume self-control. Thus, some 
struggles may be saved between the spirit of independence 
in the child, and authority in the parent. There may be 
cases in which children are competent to provide for them- 



202 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



selves and direct their own ways, before they reach the 
legal age ; yet, if parental authority still holds them, they 
have no right to throw it off. Something is due to the 
principle of filial obedience. An example of subordina- 
tion is profitable ; and to break away from parental control 
before the recognized period is mischievous in its influence. 
Something, too, is due to the judgment and feelings of 
parents, who have brought the child on to this condition 
of independence. 

But it is not true that the duty of obedience terminates, 
in all cases, with the period prescribed by the law of the 
May not land. The obligation continues during the 
terminate. entire period of dependence and the need of 
guidance. The child at home, or at school, sustained from 
the family estate, must listen to parental counsel ; and the 
duty to respect such counsel often continues after all de- 
pendence for material support has ceased. 

The claim of the child to care and support is a claim of 
benevolence, not of debt. It is a substantial claim, but not 
claim of such as to make it tolerable for the child to 
the child. sa ^ « Father give me the portion of goods 
that falleth to me." The obligation of the parent is as 
positive and peremptory as if the child had earned his liv- 
ing, but the child must receive the parental bounty with 
grateful recognition. 

Children cannot require, as a condition of obedience, that- 
parents be infallible in judgment or in spirit. Nor may 
Unreasonable they refuse obedience, in all cases, where the 
requirements, requirement is severe and unreasonable. The 
child must often obey when his own judgment disapproves 
of the command, and even when he knows that his own 
interests have not been properly considered. The parent's 
command may render that duty which would not have been 



DUTIES OF PARENT AND CHILD. 



203 



duty, or even right to do, without the command. It might 
be for the child's interest, and therefore his duty, to obtain 
a thorough education ; parental authority may make it his 
duty to forego these advantages. Of course, his final in- 
terests will lie in the direction of his duty. 

But, as in the State, so in the family, there is a limit to 
the duty of obedience. Parents may enjoin what it will 
be wrong for the child to do, after giving due A limit to 
weight to parental authority. As in other the duty- 
doubtful cases, no definite line can be drawn between the 
right and the wrong ; no absolute formula of duty can be 
given. A right heart, and such wisdom as is granted to 
those who seek, will carry one through the emergency with 
" a conscience void of offense toward God and toward men." 

When the period of positive obedience has passed, the 
duty of respect and honor still remains. It is a most de- 
sirable thing to be able to rise gracefully from Duty in 
the position of a child under authority, to that maturity, 
of a young man or woman, paying all due deference to the 
judgment of parents, yet assuming the responsibility o f 
self-direction. In this work the parent must co-operate, 
substituting counsel for command, and laying upon the 
child the responsibility of his own conduct. Perhaps the 
highest style of family government is that where personal 
influence is most prominent, and authority is kept out of 
sight, resorted to only in an emergency. Then the time 
when authority ceases is never known ; the youth becomes 
the man without any consciousness of having escaped 
parental control. 

When conditions are changed, and the parent becomes 
dependent upon the child, the duty to render care and 
support is as imperative on the part of the child as before 
on the part of the parent. It is just as monstrous for the 



204 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



child to forsake the helpless parent, as for the parent to 
forsake the child. No plea of other duties, or of the claims 
Duty to of general benevolence, is available. The Sav- 

dependent . 

parents. iour has pronounced his condemnation upon 
this hypocrisy. Such ingratitude is rare; but children 
sometimes fail, in arranging too soon for a dependent con- 
dition on the part of their parents ; too anxious to antici- 
pate the possession of the property which they expect to 
inherit. It is more seemly that the old people should en- 
joy their pursuits and responsibilities until they prefer to 
lay them off, even if the young people must commence 
with a scanty outfit. 

The relation of teacher and pupil rests, ultimately, upon 
the same ground as that of parent and child. The right to 
The teacher's govern, on one side, and the duty to obey, on 
authority. other, are essential to the teacher's work 

and the pupil's welfare. This is the simple origin of 
school government. The teacher's authority has, by some 
writers, been derived from authority delegated to him by 
the parent. The theory is far-fetched, and unnecessary. 
If the pupils had been gathered from the streets, or the 
forests, having known no parents, the same relation would 
exist. If parents should refuse their consent, the teacher 
must still govern. The teacher's duty is difficult in such 
a case, but he must govern if he can. One who under- 
takes the instruction of children and youth has a right to 
govern, by virtue of his work. Any person entering a 
group of children, may, when occasion arises, assume au- 
thority. He needs no more warrant for it than for liberty 
to do them good in any other way. 

The extent of the teacher's authority depends upon the 
necessities of the pupil — his age and discretion. The de- 
gree of control which is profitable and proper ranges from 



DUTIES OF TEACHER AND PUPIL. 



205 



the close restraint of the boarding-school for children to 
the almost complete freedom of the scientific and profes 
sional school. In every case, what is best is 

r 1 .-it 1 • -ii 1 Its extent. 

the test of what is right. In general, it will be 
found true that that system of government is most whole- 
some and most effective in the school, as well as in the 
family and the State, which provides for individual re- 
sponsibility, and acts upon the sense of character and per- 
sonal self-respect, rather than upon the regard for authority, 
and fear of exposure and of punishment. Extreme sur- 
veillance on the Dart of teachers provokes resistance on the 
part of pupils, and puts them in the position of self-pro- 
tection. A generous confidence will meet a generous 
response. 

In school government there is need of closer definitions 
of duty than in the family, and often of written rules. 
There is more room for suspicion of arbitrari- 

. Need of rules. 

ness and unreasonableness, than in the closer 
personal relations of parent and child, and more care is 
required to retain the convictions and sympathy of the 
pupils on the side of the government of the school. With- 
out this moral support of the pupils, the influence is disas- 
trous upon character, and the government is essentially a 
failure. 

The duty of the pupil involves obedience to all neces- 
sary regulations, such as may be deemed necessary by 
teachers. The judgment of the pupil cannot The pupirs 
control in the matter. It is his privilege to duty " 
express, with due respect, his opinion, and to expect all 
reasonable attention to his representations and wishes ; but 
here his responsibility in government ends, and the remain- 
ing duty is obedience. The pupil may be wiser than the 
teacher, as many private citizens may be wiser than the 



206 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



chief ruler; yet it is the teacher's duty to govern, and the 
pupil's to obey, and any attempt on the part of pupils to 
subvert this order, by dictation or combination, is pernicious 
and wrong. 

There sometimes exists a strange and painful antago- 
nism, in large public schools and colleges, toward the au- 
unnaturai thorities — not the result of any real oppression, 
antagonism. ^ut the outgrowth of a natural repugnance to 
restraint. This is often regarded as a necessary incident 
to student life, as an opposition party is an incident to civil 
government. In itself it seems a most undesirable condi- 
tion of things, one which tends greatly to counteract the 
proper influence of teachers. It seems, too, unworthy of 
young men possessed of good sense, and well disposed, to 
take an attitude of hostility toward the government of the 
school, and to regard with favor a breach of the laws, as if 
they were opposed to the interests of the student. If any 
ten of the same students were intrusted with the govern- 
ment, they would enact the same laws, and maintain the 
government, essentially, in the same form. The feeling 
must, in the first case, result from thoughtlessness, and a 
selfish regard to personal convenience and pleasure ; and 
when once the sentiment is established, it is transmitted 
from generation to generation. 

The same obligation of deference and respect rests upon 
the pupil as upon the child in the family. There should 
Duty of mu- b e an appreciation of the teacher's good inten- 
tuai regard. tion, a toleration of his infirmities, and patience 
even under an ill-judged and hasty word. The first impulse 
of the pupil may be to place himself upon his rights, and 
make an issue with his teacher. A graceful yielding is the 
truer propriety, and the higher wisdom. A corresponding 
duty rests upon the teacher to exercise patience, to put 



DUTIES OF TEACHER AND PUPIL. 



207 



aside suspicion, to .appreciate the generous disposition of 
his pupils. All successful school government involves this 
mutual co-operation — teachers exhibiting a generous con- 
fidence, and pupils responding with a hearty support of the 
government, and an intelligent interest in the order of the 
school. 

In concluding this brief examination of the subject of 
government, a remark or two may be offered upon some 
tendencies in our country not altogether desirable. 

Respect for authority and due regard for superiors in 
age and position seem a little odious to our intensely 
democratic sentiments. There is a superficial unfavorable 
feeling, that it is unworthy of a man to look tendencies, 
up with deference to a fellow-man in any relation. Yet, a 
hearty respect for age, and wisdom, and authority is es- 
sential to manliness, and forms an important element in 
every true character. " Thou shalt rise up before the 
hoary head, and honor the face of the old man, and fear 
thy God," is the dictate of nature and of Inspiration alike; 
and if the institutions of a country tend to subvert the 
natural sentiment of reverence, they must in the end prove 
disastrous. It would not be strange if, in the development 
of the democratic principle of government, extreme views 
should, for a time, obtain, and the natural and proper 
limitations of the doctrine of personal equality be left out 
of view. The rough freedom with which the highest offi- 
cers of the government are greeted in the gatherings of the 
people, is not wholly satisfactory. It does not indicate a 
want of hearty respect for the government, and confidence 
in it, but rather the reverse. Still, it is proof of the break- 
ing down of a natural sentiment which beautifies character, 
and adds a charm to the varied relations of society. True 
democracy, while it corrects the superstitious reverence for 



208 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



those in authority, does not subvert the natural relations 
of ruler and subject ; and we may confidently expect that 
these extravagances will ultimately disappear. The chival- 
rous regard shown to woman, in our country, is proof that, 
in the end, the sentiments appropriate to all the relations 
of life will prevail. 

A similar extravagance of democracy is seen in the 
tendency to extreme individualism exhibited in our civili- 
Extreme in- zation. The attempt at a sharp definition of 
dividuahsm. human rights — the rights of men, of women, 
and of children, providing a complete legal basis for the 
various relations of the family — is an example. There is, 
doubtless, room for improvement in the laws which define 
these relations, but there may be danger of subverting 
wholesome institutions, breaking up family unity, in the 
endeavor to protect the individual. It is true that all 
institutions, governmental and social, are entirely instru- 
mental — good for their uses, and of no value in themselves, 
and that all ultimate value is in the individual. But the 
good of the individual depends upon these instrumentali- 
ties, and cannot be secured by any other means. To re- 
solve the family into a business organization, chartered by 
the laws of the land, the interests of the various partners 
to be secured by a specified dividend of the pecuniary 
proceeds, cannot benefit the individual. Duties are quite 
as important as rights, and social relations as individual 
standing. 

Our institutions encourage independence of opinion, and, 
with natural and proper limitations, it is the strength of 
t a our civilization ; but there is an extreme of 

Independence ' 

of opinion. independence which is offensive and unsafe. 
It is in the order of nature that the young should receive 
many of their views from others, and form their own opin- 



DUTIES OF TEACHER AND PUPIL. 20g 

ions slowly, and with modesty. There are other duties 
besides that of independence of thought. In the experi • 
ence of all whose culture and pursuits incline them to 
thought, there is a period of transition from youth to ma- 
turity, a time for the examination of one's beliefs, and their 
foundation. At this period there is danger, in the case of 
young men especially, that they will break away from the 
views in which they have been educated, before they have 
become capable of laying sure foundations for themselves. 
Ill-considered and reckless opinions must be the result, and 
a general unsettling of the character. This danger is often 
encountered in passing from youth to manhood, and it is 
aggravated by a general pride of opinion in the commu- 
nity. Modesty in the individual comes with years, and so, 
we may hope, it will come to a people. 



SECOND DIVISION. 



PERSONAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES. 



CHAPTER I. 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 

RIGHTS are based upon susceptibilities or wants. A 
capacity to enjoy implies the right to the relative good 
Basis of adapted to that capacity, unless some higher 
rights. good, personal or general, contravenes. This 

principle is but a corollary of the broader principle, that 
the good of being is to be regarded for its own value. 

The great comprehensive want of every sentient nature, 
and the corresponding right, is well-being, satisfaction, 
The compre- happiness. The capacity for this well-being 

hensive right, jg bagis ^ condition Q f fte right tO it. 

The nature of each being is his charter of rights, and these 
rights can be determined only in the light of that nature. 
All the essential conditions of happiness, or well-being, are 
embraced in this charter of rights. In a human being, the 
right to happiness involves the subordinate rights of Life, 
Liberty, Reputation, Property, because these are essential 
to his happiness. The list might be extended, but it is 
sufficient for our purpose to consider these. 

Our Declaration of Independence, in its catalogue of 
rights, seems to suggest the pursuit of happiness as a sub- 

310 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 



211 



ordinate right, co-ordinate with others, whereas it is the sole 
generic right, comprehensive of all the rest. 

These rights, the general right of happiness, and the 
subordinate rights, which are the conditions of happiness, 
are often spoken of as inalienable. The term inalienable 
needs explanation and limitation. Every hu- ri e hts - 
man being may forfeit these rights by crime, making his 
happiness, or some of the conditions of it, a proper sacrifice 
to the good of society. And even without crime, the right 
of the individual must sometimes be surrendered to the 
higher right of society. The only right which is strictly 
inalienable is the right belonging to every being to be 
regarded for what he is, to have his interests made due 
account of. This right can never be compromised, or 
forfeited — is in the strictest sense inalienable ; but the 
privileges which it secures will vary with relations and 
circumstances. 

Duties are distinguished from rights, as having their 
basis in faculties, instead of susceptibilities ; in power to 
do, instead of capacity to enjoy ; but in com- Basis f 

mon with rights, they spring from the broad duties, 
principle that the good of being is to be regarded for its 
own sake. The duty of benevolence is generic, and all- 
comprehending. All other duties come under this com- 
prehensive one. Among these may be enumerated, Piety, 
Philanthropy, Patriotism, Self-culture, Usefulness, and such 
special virtues as Fidelity, Veracity, and Chastity. No 
such enumeration can be exhaustive, nor are the duties 
named perfectly distinct. They spring alike from benevo- 
lence, and are but modifications of it ; and, objectively, 
they may in some cases include, or imply, each other. 

Duties and rights may be contemplated as correlatives. 
Every duty which we owe terminates on some being as 



2 12 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



its object, and implies a right in that being — a claim to the 
fulfillment of the duty. His right is infringed upon if the 
correlation duty is not performed. So every right, per- 

of rights and . . ..... 

duties. taming to any being, implies a corresponding 

duty on the part of all beings who are cognizant of that 
right. 

Duties, in general, are enjoined by positive precepts, 
while rights are protected by negative precepts. " Thou 
Positive and shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 

negative pre- 10111 

cepts. heart, " Remember the Sabbath day to keep 

it holy," " Honor thy father and thy mother," are ex- 
amples of duties enjoined; " Thou shalt not kill," "Thou 
shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not covet," are examples of 
rights protected. A failure in duty may be forbidden by 
a negative precept, and respect for a right may be enjoined 
by a positive precept ; but this is not a departure from the 
principle, for a failure in duty is violation of a right, and 
respect for a right is fulfillment of a duty. 

But while rights and duties are thus intimately related, 
the subjects of right and of duty are not necessarily the 
Subjects not same. A sentient nature, capacity to enjoy, 
the same. j g sole condition of rights, and every sen- 
tient being is the subject of rights. A rational or moral 
nature is the condition of duties, and moral beings only 
are the subjects of duties. Moral beings are also sentient, 
and thus are the subjects both of rights and of duties. 
While every sentient being is the subject of rights, the 
rights must vary with the nature of the being. Even the 
brute has rights, which we are bound to respect ; or, to 
speak more definitely, in brute life there is capacity for 
good, which moral beings must make account of. A brute 
is not to be treated like insentient matter, but always with 
due respect to his susceptibility of pleasure and of pain. 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 



213 



The absence, however, of the rational element gives us 
a freedom in the treatment of brutes, which no being can 
exercise in the treatment of rational agents. Limit to the 

rights of 

The brute lives in the present. To him there brutes, 
is no past, no future. The value of his life consists in the 
aggregate of the animal enjoyment which is involved in 
his experience, from the beginning to the end of that life. 
The satisfaction of to-day is not affected by the remem- 
brance of yesterday, or the hope of to-morrow. His life 
is an aggregation, not a unity. Hardship laid upon him is 
simply a subtraction from the present animal enjoyment, 
and leaves no sense of injustice, or of apprehension, to cast 
a shadow over subsequent experiences. An unusual ac- 
cession of enjoyment is simply an addition to the present 
good, and can never stand, in the experience of the brute, 
as compensation for the past, or promise for the future. 
His enjoyment goes for what it is worth in the present 
moment. Again, the fate or experience of one individual 
of the species has no bearing to occasion pleasant or pain- 
ful remembrances, or hopes or apprehensions, in another. 
There may be a present sense of loss when a companion 
falls, but no painful inferences mar the animal enjoyment. 

"The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, 
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? 
Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, 
And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood." 

Hence, we are permitted to use animal powers and life 
as utilities, to minister to our own happiness or welfare. 
To occasion wanton pain to brutes is a wrong. To be treated 
It is a destruction of good without any resulting as utlllties - 
good. But if the good is transferred, by increased satis- 
faction, to a higher being, or even to a being of the same 
order, such treatment is the proper use, and not the abuse, 



214 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



of brute life. We may take brutes to bear our burdens, 
or to minister to our good by their life, or by their death, 
and we use them in accordance with their nature, under 
the law of benevolence. They may be treated as utilities, 
with the simple limitation that no wanton pain shall be 
inflicted, no animal life wasted. Such a use of brutes is 
in harmony with their nature, and doubtless secures the 
greatest amount of good, in connection with animal life, of 
which the nature of the case admits. 

But no such privilege can exist on the part of any being, 
higher or lower, in the use or treatment of human beings. 
Human ^ rational being has a past and a future, as 

bemgs not. we jj ag a p resen t. His life is a unity, and not 
a mere continuity. An experience of ill in the past is not 
a mere subtraction from his happiness by the amount of 
that ill. The experience may bring a sense of injustice, or 
of fear and apprehension. His highest interests depend 
upon his personality, his capacity to form purposes and 
plans, and realize them, and to sustain responsibilities and 
meet them. Subjection to the will of another, in any such 
sense as to preclude these plans, or essentially interfere 
with these responsibilities, is inconsistent with his highest 
well-being. Again, the experience of one rational being 
is of interest to all who become cognizant of that experi- 
ence. Hope and fear, confidence and distrust, arise to men 
from the experience of others, as well as from their own ; 
and thus the interest of one becomes the interest of all. 
The moral universe is a unity. The happiness of all de- 
pends upon the treatment of the individual; and injustice 
or hardship, in a single instance, unsettles the confidence 
and security of all, and makes their well-being impossible. 

Some philosophers seem to overlook this fact of person- 
ality, as distinguishing man from the brute, in his conditions 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 



of well-being, and represent nature as careless of the indi- 
vidual, and careful of the species or the type. The species 
man would be a blot upon creation if the indi- A misappre _ 
vidual man were not cared for according to his hension - 
wants and rights. Human society exists for the supply of 
these wants, and for the protection of these rights ; and it 
is successful in proportion as it secures the welfare of the 
individual. Let us turn to the consideration of the leading- 
rights with which man in society is invested. 



CHAPTER II. 



RIGHTS — LIFE. 

As life is a prime condition of well-being, the generic 
right to be happy embraces the particular right to live. 
Be sis of Every man, whose life does not stand in the 
thfa right. wa y Q £ t | le g enera j good, can claim, in his re- 
lation to his fellow-men, the right of continued life. This 
right is protected by the sixth commandment : " Thou 
shalt not kill." The manifest interpretation of the precept 
is, Thou shalt not murder ; but, like the other command- 
ments, it comprehends, by implication, a class of offenses 
against the person, and prohibits all violence, all reckless^ 
ness, all carelessness. 

The guilt of murder, which is the gravest form of viola- 
tion of the right to life, lies, of course, in the cherished ill— 
Guilt of w ^ or b a< ^ intention — the mischievous pur- 

murder, pose. This is the malice prepense which con- 
stitutes, according to human law, as well as divine, the 
subjective element in the crime. Without this element, 
homicide ceases to be murder; with it, the guilt exists, 
even if the outward act be wanting. " Whoso hateth his 
brother is a murderer." 

The legal term, malice, and the Scriptural term, hatred, 
are often misunderstood as expressing a malicious feeling, 
the emotion of malice or hatred ; but this is not the proper 
signification of the terms. The malice of the law, that 
which constitutes the guilt, is an intent or purpose, irre- 

216 



RIGHTS — LIFE. 



217 



spective of any feeling; and malice prepense is a definite, 
settled purpose against the life. The feeling is an unim- 
portant matter, except as it sheds light upon A misunder . 
the purpose, in a question of evidence. Malice standin g- 
of purpose may coexist with utter indifference of feeling 
toward the victim, or even with intense pity. The high- 
way robber, or the pirate, whose aim is plunder, cherishes 
no malicious feeling toward the unknown victim whose 
life he sacrifices to conceal the evidence of his crime. The 
man who plots a railway disaster, with the hope of plun- 
der, feels no hatred toward the passengers whose lives 
he imperils or destroys. Yet these are all murderers, and 
their malice is in their purpose. They are enemies of the 
human race. The unnatural mother who murders her own 
child may even weep in pity while she nerves herself to 
the deed. 

The purpose to commit the crime, the malicious intent, 
may be more or less distinct and deliberate ; hence, it is 
customary, in legislation and in judicial pro- Modifications 
ceedings, to discriminate different degrees of ofthecrime - 
crime. The modification of the crime of murder which is 
called manslaughter, is involved in any destruction of hu- 
man life, occasioned by negligence, or carelessness, or reck- 
lessness, without a definite purpose to kill: as, in leaving 
a pit uncovered into which men are liable to fall ; discharg- 
ing a gun under such circumstances as manifestly to en- 
danger life ; driving a railroad train at a reckless speed, or 
with an unnecessary risk ; attempting a case in medicine 
or surgery, involving a risk of life, without the necessary 
qualifications in knowledge and skill ; or the crime may be 
committed while in the perpetration of any other illegal 
act, as theft or burglary, because in all such crimes there is 
danger to life. The essential element, in all these grades 



21 8 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



of the crime, is the same in kind — the absence of proper 
regard for human life. 

Any crime, such as arson, highway robbery, kidnapping, 
slave-trading, obstruction of railroads, which involves dan- 
other related g er to life > i m P nes the guilt of murder, in a 
crimes. degree proportioned to the perceived danger. 

The guilt is incurred, even if a fatal result be averted. An 
occupation, like that of rum-selling, though generally rec- 
ognized as a business, and not as a crime, if it involves 
danger and mischief to human life, and is in no proper 
sense necessary to the general good, carries with it the 
guilt of murder. Every man is held responsible for the 
obvious and natural consequences of his doings. It does 
not avail to say that the rum-seller intends no murder, that 
he regrets the loss of life which results from his business. 
A proper regard for human life. would lead him to renounce 
his calling. In his regret at the destruction of life, he does 
not differ from the pirate, who would prefer to gather his 
spoils without murder. The time is sure to come when 
such a pursuit will be treated as a felony. According to 
the Mosaic law, the man who suffered his " ox, wont to 
push with the horn," to go at large, was held responsible 
for all damage to life or limb which resulted. The princi- 
ple is just, and capable of wide application. 

The right to life does not imply the right to preserve it 
at every sacrifice. Another may have no right to demand 
Right of self- what we may be under obligation to surren- 

preservation . . , 

limited. der. We are not permitted to avoid all ex- 

posure of life, or to pursue always the course which prom- 
ises the longest life. The way of duty often lies through 
dangers. To keep one's self always out of the reach of 
harm is by no means the privilege of responsible beings. 
In a common danger, others may require us to expose 



RIGHTS — LIFE. 



219 



our lives to repel the danger. The government may right- 
fully compel a service, fraught with extreme peril, as in 
the military draft. The life of an innocent i nacommon 
person may, in a rare emergency, be required dan & er - 
and taken, to save the lives of many. The paramount law 
of benevolence affords the only criterion for such cases. 

The right to life carries with it, with certain limitations, 
the right to protect that life — the right of self-defense. 
There are methods of self-protection univer- 

Self-defense. 

sally acknowledged to be proper. We may 
avail ourselves of any reasonable opportunity to escape the 
danger, or of any police arrangement which the govern- 
ment may afford for protection. But beyond all these, in 
a pressing danger, we may repel violence by such force as 
we may be able to command, even to the extent of taking 
the life of an assailant. The aim should be, in every case, 
merely to avert the danger, and never to inflict injury be- 
yond the requirement of self-protection. The emergency 
which calls for such exercise of force, will, of course, pre- 
clude very careful discriminations ; but such as are possi- 
ble should always be made. 

The right to defend life extends to lives under our pro- 
tection ; and the right is even broader in reference to 
such lives. We might be allowed to surrender Defense of 
our own lives to an assailant, when we could °* hers - 
assume no such responsibility in reference to the life of 
another. 

We can have no right to occasion a wanton destruction 
of life in self-defense. We must have some reasonable 
prospect of escape ; otherwise, the sacrifice of Wanton 
the lives of assailants is inexcusable. To sell destruction, 
one's life as dearly as possible is" not a proper maxim in 
self-defense. This principle applies only when there is 



22Q 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



some object to be attained beyond self-preservation. It 
would apply in the case of Leon i das and his men, when 
the safety of the country was at stake. 

The taking of life in the protection of property is, in gen- 
eral, utterly unjustifiable. Those who use deadly weap- 
Notfor pro- ons to protect their grounds from marauders 

tection of . 

property. have entirely transcended the limits of the 
right of self-defense. The common law agrees with the 
Mosaic code in discriminating between the midnight burg- 
lar, whose purpose may be assassination, and the common 
thief. The one may be repelled with deadly weapons, at 
the hazard of taking life ; the other may not. 

An attempt to punish an assailant by inflicting injury 
upon him is not self-defense. The fact that an assailant 
Not to punish deserves the blow is no proper reason for in- 
an assailant. flicting it When the assault has been re- 
pelled, further violence cannot be justified on the ground 
of self-defense. Retaliation must be carefully discrimi- 
nated from self-defense. Those who discard the right of 
self-defense often fail to make this discrimination. It is a 
grosser perversion of the doctrine of self-defense, to repel 
an insult, or abuse in words, by violence. The corrupt cus- 
toms of the land have sometimes sustained such outrages. 

The general practice of carrying concealed weapons can- 
not be justified on the ground of self-defense. The cus- 
Carrying torn * s dangerous, pernicious, and doubtless 
weapons. reS ults in the destruction of life instead of its 
preservation. It is an offense against society, and is prop- 
erly made a misdemeanor by law. 

The barbarous practice of dueling has sometimes been 
defended on the ground of self-protection — protection, not 
so much of life, as of honor. The principle of self-defense 
admits of no such application. The honor that is vindi- 



RIGHTS — LIFE. 



221 



cated by the result of a duel is unworthy of the name. 
The preservation of true honor, which is only another 
name for rectitude, might justify tlie sacrifice 

Dueling. 

of one's own life ; but to assail the life of an- 
other, on such a pretense, changes honor into dishonor; 
yet this is the nature of the modern duel. The idea of the 
duel, in its origin, involved an appeal to Heaven to vindi- 
cate the right; and though such an appeal is utterly un- 
warrantable, it is not so utterly loathsome as the attempt to 
save one's honor by shedding the blood of another. The 
motive to the duel, as it exists in modern society, is either 
vindictive hate, or moral cowardice, under pressure of pub- 
lic sentiment. Neither of these motives can save either 
party in the transaction from the guilt of murder. 

Objections against the doctrine of self-defense are some- 
times based upon the Saviour's precept, " Resist not evil. 
To him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, "Resist not 
offer also the other." But a careful study of evl1 '" 
these and similar passages will show that they are directed 
against a spirit of resentment and retaliation, and not 
against proper self-defense. The love which " worketh 
no ill to a neighbor" is only benevolence, and benevolence 
is good-will governed by reason. If self-defense is reason- 
able, it is required by benevolence. 

The objection that the Lord will protect those who trust 
in him, and hence self-defense is unnecessary, assumes 
that self-defense is improper. If self-defense « TheLord 
be right, then a trust in the Lord which is not wil1 P rotect -" 
presumption, will require the use of the legitimate means 
of self-protection. We must trust the Lord for daily 
bread ; but he that will not work for it cannot expect to 
eat. Trust without labor is not genuine trust. 

The idea that the avowal of the principle of non- resist- 



222 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



ance would exert such a moral force as, in a great degree, 
to do away with violence, is based upon the same assump- 
Effectiveness tion of the wrongfulness of self-defense. If 

of non-resist- 
ance, self-defense be reasonable and right, then there 

is no special moral force in the principle of non-resistance. 
It is simply an amiable blunder. As a rare exhibition, it 
might move an assailant to forbearance, like any other un- 
usual, kind-hearted, scrupulosity. 

The question has sometimes been discussed of the pro- 
priety of taking human life to shorten the final agony in 
the case of one manifestly about to die. In 

Euthanasia. .... 

the case of brutes we have no hesitation, but 
human life involves such far-reaching interests that no one 
can safely be intrusted with the responsibility of hastening 
its termination for such a purpose. 



CHAPTER III. 



RIGHTS — LIBERTY. 

Liberty is the opportunity for the free exercise of our 
own faculties, in the performance of duty, and in the pur- 
suit of good, under the law of benevolence. Definition 
The right covers not the privilege of doing as and extent - 
we will, but as we believe we ought to will. Freedom 
from the restraints of duty and obligation is license, not 
liberty. No one can have a right to use his liberty beyond 
the limits of benevolence ; but, practically, it is impossible 
to secure to men the privilege of free action, within the 
limits of benevolence, without giving them, at the same 
time, power to transcend those limits. The basis and the 
general limitations of the right belong to morals ; but the 
practical degree of liberty to be allowed by government, 
under different conditions of civilization, is a problem in 
social and political science. 

That degree of liberty of action which, under the cir- 
cumstances, is consistent with the general good, is the right 
of every moral being. Such freedom is to him Basis of 
a condition of happiness or well-being ; and the right ' 
the right to happiness, which is the comprehensive, generic 
right, implies the right to the essential conditions of happi- 
ness. The limits of the liberty which he can claim are not 
fixed and unchangeable, but vary with his surroundings, 
or his relations to others. A being existing alone in the 
world would be without restraint, except such as regard for 

223 



224 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



his own good would impose. He would have a right to 
use every utility for his own advantage. Let a neighbor 
be given him, and his liberty is at once circumscribed. 
Adam, alone in the garden, had a right to consult simply 
his own convenience and comfort in his movements. 
When Eve came, this right was circumscribed by the fact 
that her welfare is to be respected. Her right is of equal 
force with his, and the right of each is limited by that of 
the other. 

The opinion has sometimes been set forth, that, in a state 
of nature, men are perfectly free ; but choosing to enter 
Misappre- society for their own advantage, they surren- 

hension of 

its origin. der to the society, as represented m the govern- 
ment, a part of their liberty in exchange for the advantages 
it offers, retaining what is not thus surrendered. Such a 
view is wholly ideal, and does not tend to elucidate the 
subject. A state of nature, as thus represented, has never 
been realized, except in the case of the first man. Men are 
born into society, and never have the choice of entering it 
submitted to them. There is no surrender of rights for the 
advantages of society, as the theory supposes. The rights 
never existed. No one ever had any rights but such as 
are consistent with the common good. These are the facts 
in respect to general society. There are some special re- 
lationships, which we are at liberty to form or not ; and in 
forming them we surrender a part of our liberty for the 
advantages we secure. On this principle, we connect our- 
selves with others, in business or in marriage, or enter a 
school or a church. 

The right of liberty, limited by benevolence, extends 
to all our powers and activities. Our bodily powers we 
are permitted to use in accordance with our own wisdom. 
Others may be more wise, and thus more competent to 



RIGHTS — LIBERTY. 



225 



give direction to these powers ; but they cannot, for such 
reason, assume the control of our powers, except in cases 
where the general good may require it. The Extendsto 
results of our labor are ours, to use accord- bodll y p° wers - 
ing to our discretion. We have the right of locomotion, 
the choice of place of residence, and of occupation. Yet 
these rights all have their limits. The government may 
require and compel our service, for the promotion of the 
common interests, or restrict our locomotion, and confine 
us to our own locality, if the public good so demands. 
Such limitations may seem to render human liberty pre- 
carious, but they cannot be set aside. It is the more 
necessary to guard the right with jealous care. 

The same right of self- direction pertains to our intel- 
lectual powers, and their results. These powers are ours, 
to cultivate and employ in. free thought and To intellect _ 
free expression. True liberty leaves us free in ual P° wers - 
the exercise of our tastes — the lower and the higher — our 
aesthetic nature. Sumptuary laws, regulating expenditure 
for personal gratification, are, in general, an infringement 
of human rights. Extreme public necessity, as in a famine 
or a siege, will sometimes warrant the regulation of these 
interests by authority. A depraved or corrupted taste,- 
like the love of strong drink, injurious alike to him who 
indulges it, and to society at large, may be rightfully 
restrained by law. 

Our moral and spiritual nature comes under the same 
principle of liberty, with even less restrictions. We have 
a right to our own opinions, in matters of mo- To the moral 
rality and religion ; and to a free expression of nature - 
our opinions, in action and in worship. Yet, even here, 
liberty has its limits. Society has a right to maintain pub- 
lic order and morality, and to place such checks upon in- 



226 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



dividual action as those interests may require. A religious 
system, like Mormonism, which strikes at the foundation 
of public morals, or open paganism, which tends to break 
down the religious sentiment of the community, can claim 
no indulgence on the plea of liberty of conscience. 

Absolute toleration of all conceivable teaching and prac- 
tice, in morals and in religion, is by no means a self-evident 
Limits of principle. There are sentiments too atrocious 
toleration. anc | corru pti n g and dangerous to be allowed 
utterance. The precise limit of legitimate .toleration is 
matter of experience and judgment; and this limit will 
vary with conditions and circumstances. The right to 
cherish an opinion is not subject to limitation from without ; 
but the right to express that opinion is always limited by 
the requirements of the general welfare. Until it can be 
proved that universal toleration is consistent with the best 
interests of men, government must have the right to im- 
pose some restrictions upon the expression and practice of 
what may be set forth as a conscientious belief. Every 
error of opinion is more or less mischievous, and subversive 
of the public good ; but, in general, it is wiser and better 
to leave such errors to find their own correction in the con- 
flict with truth, than to attempt their suppression by au- 
thority. When the evil is gross and notorious, the right 
to toleration ceases. 

The freedom of the press is subject to the same limita- 
tions. In an ordinary condition of society, little restriction 
Freedom of 1S ca ^ e ^ for ; but in times of public danger, 
the press. right to restrict and regulate must be 

maintained and exercised. The power of the press is 
to be used, like every other power, in harmony with the 
public interests. 

The claims of what is called free discussion are not ab- 



RIGHTS — LIBERTY 



227 



solute and universal. He who has an opinion to set forth 
cannot always claim a hearing whenever it may seem to him 
desirable that he should be heard. Each man Free dis _ 
has the right to protect his own family against cussion. 
the intrusion of what he deems dangerous error ; and the 
promulgator of a doctrine cannot complain against a con- 
scientious exercise of this right. W e have a right to estab- 
lish a school in the interest of religion and truth, and to 
exclude from its positions of influence the teachers of irre- 
ligion and falsehood ; and the conscientious exercise of this 
right cannot properly expose us to the charge of illiber- 
ality or bigotry. We may organize a church, and build 
a house of worship, for the maintenance of our religious 
views and our chosen modes of worship ; and no demand 
for free discussion can require us to invite into the pulpit 
those whose teachings are subversive of our conscientious 
faith and worship. We must accord to those of different 
views the same prerogative in their own field ; and a con- 
scientious exercise of this right is neither ungenerous nor 
intolerant. We are under no obligation, in our personal 
arrangements, to give to error the same opportunity which 
we secure to what we believe to be the truth. It is reason- 
able and wise to listen to the views of others, even when 
we deem them wrong, and often to give even to mischiev- 
ous error an opportunity to set forth its claim ; but the 
claim to such a hearing must be presented on the ground 
of courtesy, and not of right, and the hearing may be 
granted on the ground that it gives a better opportunity 
to the truth. 

How much civil government may properly undertake, in 
the way of sustaining and enforcing education, and moral- 
ity, and religion, is to be determined by the prospect of 
success in the undertaking. No a priori principle can de- 



228 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



fine the limit. Different conditions of society will give 
different solutions of the problem. A State church and 
Duties of civil ordinances of religion established and enforced 
government. ^ government were appropriate in the 
early history of the people of Israel. Compulsory education 
seems still successful in some of the States of continental 
worship and Europe; but, in general, voluntary arrange- 
education. ments, both for education and religion, are 
found to be more in harmony with modern civilization. 
But this condition of society does not require that the gov- 
ernment should be indifferent to education or religion, or 
should make no provision for them. A system of public 
instruction, sustained by taxation, of which the people may 
avail themselves, is found to be most efficient, and this fact 
is the warrant for its existence. Upon the same principle, 
the government may be justified in guarding a day from 
such secular occupations as would destroy its usefulness as 
a Sabbath, that the people may employ it for the purposes 
of religion. Such governmental protection seems necessary 
to the establishment and successful maintenance of the in- 
stitutions of religion. The public enforcement of quiet on 
one day in seven is not an encroachment upon the rights 
of conscience ; and if secular interests in general are not 
injured, then the appointment is in no sense oppressive. 
Even without divine authority for the Sabbath, civil gov- 
ernment would be warranted in the appointment. 

In the domain of personal or private action, our liberty 
is, of course, limited by our own conscientious convictions. 
Subjective We cann °t maintain liberty of action against 
limitations. Qur fina j judgment of duty. When another 
has no right to limit our liberty, our own consciences im - 
pose restrictions. But, beyond this, there is an important 
sense in which we are limited by the consciences of others, 



RIGHTS — LIBERTY. 



229 



and even by their imperfect views and infirmities. Habits 
and practices which might be safe and wholesome to us, 
we have no right to indulge when they become an occasion 
of temptation to others. The Apostle Paul yields to this 
limitation of his freedom when he says : " If meat make 
my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world 
standeth, lest I make my brother to offend." Thus our 
" liberty is judged of another man's conscience." The duty 
of total abstinence from intoxicating drinks Total absti _ 
rests upon this principle more distinctly than nence - 
upon any other. In view of the weakness of men in this 
direction, and the importance of diminishing temptation 
and strengthening every favoring influence, it may be the 
duty of those to abstain to whom a simple glass of wine 
would bring no harm or danger. If my indulgence would 
endanger a brother man, it is unbenevolent for me to vin- 
dicate my right. The claim of personal liberty in the case 
is the plea of the selfish and self-indulgent. 

The same principle must apply to other indulgences, en- 
tertainments, and amusements, which have become temp- 
tations to many. It is not enough that to our- Gther indul _ 
selves they bring no danger, or even that in g ences - 
themselves, apart from perverted associations, they may 
be wholesome recreations. If they serve as a snare to 
others, the earnest and thoughtful will find their recreation 
in other channels. The effort to recover these questionable 
entertainments from their evil associations has generally 
proved a failure. 

In the regulation of one's own conduct in these doubtful 
matters, definite lines, not to be passed, are of great prac- 
tical value. There is a gradual inclination from the inno- 
cent to the harmful, each downward step so gentle and uni- 
form that one finds himself on forbidden eround before his 



230 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



attention has been aroused. In the midst of the entice- 
ments of pleasure, the necessary discriminations will not 
useofdefi- ^ e ma -de. Facilis descensus y sed revocare gra- 
mte rules. g um — ^ d escen t is easy, the return is diffi- 
cult. There is sound wisdom in adopting- a practical rule 
for ourselves, a rough formula, which we can always apply, 
even when, in the pressure of excitement, we cannot un- 
dertake an exact solution of the problem of propriety. 
The young man who adopts the maxim never to touch, in 
its mildest form, the intoxicating cup, will walk safely ; 
while he who undertakes to decide each case upon its own 
merits will be ensnared. Similar rules will be found profit- 
able in reference to games and other amusements. These 
are for the regulation of ourselves, and not a standard by 
which to judge others. They are not exact expressions of 
what is right, but convenient approximations. 

Encroachments upon personal liberty appear in various 
forms. Government, in the family, the school, the church, 
violations or tne State, may oppress the individual with 
of hberty. unnecessary restrictions, or with burdensome 
requirements and exactions. These may have been nec- 
essary in their time, and the necessity may have passed 
away, so that the subject is entitled to a larger liberty. 
Public sentiment, concentrated in the form of offensive or 
burdensome customs and usages, may lay upon the indi- 
vidual burdens grievous to be borne. It is not rare in stu- 
dent life that one feels compelled to incur an unreasonable 
expense, or sanction a folly, to maintain his respectability. 
Fashion is often tyrannous. No apparent force is em- 
ployed, but substantial penalties are inflicted. The most 
odious instances of encroachment upon liberty are in the 
form of personal violence — strength oppressing weakness ; 
and the extreme example of this oppression is found in 



RIGHTS — LIBERTY. 



231 



chattel slavery, where man is treated merely as a utility, 
an appendage to another's convenience or interest. Slavery 
originates in personal violence, and is maintained by vio- 
lence. The laws which regulate and sustain it spring from 
slavery ; they do not create slavery. 

We have a right to maintain our liberty, under an op- 
pressive government, by moving for its reformation, and 
finally by revolution ; under an oppressive Defense of 
public sentiment, by declaring our independ- liberty, 
ence, and disregarding the corrupt custom ; under personal 
violence, by an appeal to the law, by flying from oppres- 
sion, and by personal resistance to aggression. The right 
of resistance has its limits. Even a chattel slave cannot 
properly vindicate his rights at any unlimited sacrifice of 
life, or open a path to freedom through indiscriminate 
slaughter. An enslaved race or people may be allowed to 
do, for themselves and their posterity, what the individual 
slave might not do. 



CHAPTER IV. 



RIGHTS — REPUTATION. 

PROMINENT among human interests stands reputation. 
To every moral being it is a condition of happiness to be 
Reputation ne ^ m esteem by others. " A good name is 
an interest. ra ther to be chosen than great riches, and lov- 
ing favor rather than silver or gold." 

Reputation extends to all personal attributes and ac- 
complishments — everything which adds to influence and 
Extends to power, or enhances one's position among men, 
what? Qr wri i cri ma k es one an object of regard. That 

reputation is of most value which is based upon the high- 
est qualities. As moral integrity, genuine uprightness, is 
the highest personal attribute, a reputation for such a char- 
acter is most to be prized. But it is important to be held 
in esteem for good sense, natural ability, professional ac- 
quirements and skill, and every personal attribute necessary 
to success or happiness. 

Reputation becomes a good in two respects, directly and 
indirectly. The moral approval of others is immediately 
grateful. To be held in esteem for virtuous 

How a good. 'ill i • i 

character is probably, next to his own approval, 
the highest good of every moral being. There is substan- 
tial value, too, in esteem bestowed for any personal excel- 
lence. Indirectly, reputation is valuable, as it is a con- 
dition of success in the work of life. In any calling, a 

232 



RIGHTS— REPUTATION. 



233 



reputation for honor and good judgment, and professional 
ability, is more important than capital. There is no one, 
however exalted or however humble, to whom a good 
name is not more than property. 

The proper claim to a reputation extends no further than 
the real facts in the case will sustain. No one can have a 
claim to be regarded beyond his true merit. 

The precept of the decalogue which protects this right 
or interest is the ninth : " Thou shalt not bear false wit- 
ness against thy neighbor." The grosser form The deca . 
of offense — false swearing — gives form to the i°gue. 
precept, but the law unquestionably forbids assault upon a 
neighbor's reputation, by positive misstatement, by insinu- 
ation, or innuendo, by expression of suspicion or apprehen- 
sion, by partial statements, and even by silence when the 
circumstances require utterance. 

Even truth-telling may carry with it the force of slan- 
der; as when a past misdemeanor, long since discarded 
and corrected, is set forth as indicative, of character, or an 
exceptional act is given as if it were characteristic. Such 
truth-telling is prohibited by the law. 

The sin of slander, like all other sins, is primarily sub- 
jective — a state of heart involving disregard of a neigh- 
bor's reputation — one of the forms in which Temptations 
a want of benevolence shows itself. The to slander - 
temptations to the sin are manifold. One of the most 
common is the consciousness of an unworthy character in 
one's self, to which an apprehension of similar unworthi- 
ness in others affords some relief. Out of this springs 
the disposition to uncharitable judgment of others, a cen- 
sorious spirit, amounting at times almost to an incapacity 
of fair judging. It shows itself in a disposition to be 
pleased with the failures and frailties of others, a most 



234 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



unnatural and unbenevolent pleasure. A heart greedy 
of scandal is another of the results — an ear open to dis- 
paraging reports. 9 In general, it requires two parties to 
perpetrate a slander, one to bear the false report, another 
to receive it. There is usually wrong in both parties to 
the transaction. 

Another temptation to a disregard of the reputation of 
others is in the pleasure derived from hearing or telling 
interest in some matter of personal interest. We are so 
matters. constituted that facts of personal history and 
experience are naturally attractive and interesting. They 
form an inviting topic of conversation. There is a natural 
love for canvassing the peculiarities of our neighbors, which 
leads to hasty judgments of their character and conduct, 
and to inconsiderate statements. No malicious feeling is 
cherished, and it may seem a harmless style of conversa- 
tion ; but unfavorable impressions often result from such 
conversations ; the reputation of a neighbor suffers. These 
communications are sometimes excused, on the ground that 
it is a convenient method of improving our knowledge of 
character, of human nature. We might study anatomy by 
extending a neighbor upon the dissecting-table, but the 
end would scarcely justify the means. It is better not to 
cultivate, or indulge, the habit of dissecting the characters 
of neighbors and friends. 

The habit of making prominent, even in thought, the 
weaknesses and foibles of others, is not to be approved. 
Propensity to All have their peculiarities, their infirmities, 
caricature. j n a sense fa G y } iave a right to them, as being 

inseparable from human nature. At least they have a 
right to considerate and benevolent treatment in view of 
them. Ridicule can be brought to bear upon the most 
exalted human character, by making these foibles prom- 



RIGHTS — REPUTATION. 



235 



inent, presenting the character out of proportion. The 
result is a caricature — a real misrepresentation, painful to 
the object, and tending to depress him unreasonably in the 
esteem of others. Ridicule has its uses, but it should be 
aimed at follies, not at personal character. The pleasure 
afforded by it, when thus perverted, is an unworthy one. 
It cannot be denied that men have, very generally, a taste 
for personalities, and that a tale of scandal gratifies this 
taste. So does human flesh the perverted taste of can- 
nibals ; but we cannot afford victims for such barbarous 
pleasures. 

We have a right to speak truth unfavorable to reputa- 
tion, when the common good requires. If we become cog- 
nizant of imposture that ought to be exposed, Dutyofex . 
of crime that ought to be punished, or of less posing wrong - 
formidable misdeeds that should be brought to light and 
corrected, it is not only right, but duty, to communicate 
the facts to those who ought to know them. Each mem- 
ber of the community is, to this extent, a guardian of the 
general welfare. This principle applies in more limited 
communities — for example, in a body of students; and 
any view which holds it dishonorable for any member of 
the body to discharge such a duty is false and corrupting. 
It may be called honor, or any other high-sounding name. 
It is, in fact, a base betrayal of grave interests, from a cow- 
ardly fear of a dishonest public sentiment. True honor 
requires every member of such a community to protect 
its real interests, by the exposure of crime and dishonor. 
There is a clear distinction, which every honest man sees, 
between the work of a busybody, an informer, and the 
open and manly exposure of wrong. 

We have no right to utter even truth, that is prejudicial 
to another's good name, when no interest requires it. Dis- 



236 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



agreeable facts in reference to personal- character are to 
be left to forgetfulness, unless some harm is to be appre- 
siander in heiided from silence. Slander may be perpe- 
truth- trated by speaking the truth, as well as by 

propagating a falsehood. The same disregard of a neigh- 
bor's welfare is sometimes involved in the one as in the 
other. 



CHAPTER V. 



RIGHTS — PROPERTY. 

THE right of property grows out of the prior right to 
our own faculties, and their results. Property is the re- 
sult of labor, or of the use of our powers. origin of 
That this belongs, by right, to the producer, the right, 
is as evident as that he has the right to use his faculties for 
his own good. The possession of the faculty would be of 
no advantage unless its product could be appropriated, or 
made property. The good of the individual, and the wel- 
fare of society, alike depend on the recognition of the right. 
Civilization advances as this right becomes well defined 
and protected. A perfect civilization involves an exact 
distribution of the result of labor among the various par- 
ties that have contributed to the result. The idea that the 
claim of property is wrong and selfish has been set forth at 
times in different forms of socialism and agrarianism ; but 
the common sense of mankind repudiates the idea. 

The right of property is recognized and protected in the 
eighth commandment: " Thou shalt not steal" — a pro- 
hibition of the outward act, in every form in 

-i i 11 i • i The P re cept. 

which the right may be invaded ; also m the 

tenth: " Thou shalt not covet," which touches the sin in its 

subjective form, the indulged desire which leads to fraud. 

The methods by which property may be rightfully ac- 
quired are various. The most simple, and probably the 
first historically, is the appropriation of what nature spon- 

237 



238 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



taneously yields. The capacity for enjoying is the warrant 
for appropriating whatever may be at hand adapted to the 
Methods of want, both for present and future use. The 
acquiring. good thus accumulated, or taken possession of, 
by foresight and labor, becomes property. A new-comer 
must gather for himself, and not invade his neighbor's pos- 
sessions. 

A further step in the acquisition of property is the em- 
ployment of our faculties in the cultivation of the soil, pro- 
ducing material for food and clothing. The product thus 
obtained belongs, in the nature of the case, to the producer. 
The manufacture of articles for use, from material which 
nature spontaneously affords, or which is yielded from the 
cultivation of the soil, is a similar ground of possession, 
can be trans- Articles thus possessed may be transferred by 
ferred. ^j£^ or exchange. The owner of property 

can transfer his claim, in all its force, to another. The 
right to property descends, upon the death of the owner, 
to children or near relatives. If the right terminated with 
the life of the original proprietor, property would lose half 
its value. The fact that the government regulates the suc- 
cession does not prove, as some authorities claim, that the 
property- right has terminated, and is revived by the action 
of the law. The law merely recognizes the right, and 
makes it definite. 

The fact of discovery is sometimes spoken of as confer- 
ring the right of possession. It is only another form of 
Right of acquiring, by the use of our faculties. If the 
discovery. finding be accidental, the case is not materially 
changed. The article must be appropriated to be useful, 
and the finder is indicated as the natural owner. This law 
holds only when there has been no previous owner, and 
when the government has made no provision for the dis- 



RIGHTS — PROPERTY. 



^39 



posal of the property. This it may do, on the ground that 
such commodities belong to society at large. 

Long-continued possession may not only confer the 
right of property, but may transfer the right from an orig- 
inal proprietor to the present possessor; be- Effect of pos . 
cause his interests are more connected with the session - 
possession than those of the original owner, and to disturb 
such possession makes the right of property precarious. 
Even if possession were unjustly secured at the outset, the 
principle will still hold in the case of an innocent possessor. 
To disturb such possession, on the plea of exact justice, is 
often the height of injustice. " Extremntn jus, extrema 
injuria" 

There are things which are most valuable in the sense of 
meeting want, which still cannot be appropriated ; either 
because they cannot, in the nature of the case, Things not 

to be ap- 

be taken possession of, or because they belong propriated. 
to the race as a common inheritance. Of this class are 
air, and water, and sunlight, and space. Portions of these 
gifts of nature we can appropriate, and exclude others thus 
far from their use ; because thus only can these things be 
made useful. But no one can call the air or water of a 
vast region his own, and compel others to compensate him 
for its use. Equally preposterous is it to take possession 
of the unoccupied land of a continent, and exact rent of all 
others who enter upon it. So much as we can profitably 
cultivate and render useful we are permitted to possess, 
and beyond this the claim is very unsubstantial. The 
government rightly holds these unappropriated lands for 
the benefit of society at large. A barbarous' people, oc- 
cupying a vast territory as a hunting-ground, incapable of 
availing themselves of its agricultural resources, may be 
compelled to accept civilization, and surrender a portion of 



240 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



their domain to those who need. Their property-right is 
very slender, and may be extinguished sometimes against 
their will, but not to their real disadvantage. 

Animals are made property by divine appointment, and 
in accordance with their own nature ; and yet they are not 
Animals made property, " to all intents, purposes, and con- 
property. structions whatsoever. " There is an absolute 
good in their nature, apart from their utility, and that 
nature must be respected. An utter disregard of their 
sentient nature is cruelty, and cruelty is a crime. 

A rational being cannot be held as property, a mere 
chattel. His true good requires that his powers be under 
Human be- ms own cont -rol — directed by his intelligence, 
mgs not. an( j accorc ii n g to his own convictions of duty. 
Hence, he can never be rightfully made a mere appendage, 
a means of good, to another. No human being can, in this 
sense, own another. This is the essence of slavery, ac- 
cording to its legal definition ; not mere constraint, or 
compelled and unrecompensed service ; but it transforms 
a man into a thing, treats him as a utility. One man may 
claim the service of another, and this claim may be treated 
as a property interest, and even transferred, as in the case 
of a child or an apprentice ; but in every such case the 
manhood is respected, and the property interest is made 
subordinate to the personal good. Where the substantial 
interest of the individual requires, the property interest 
may be rightfully extinguished. 

The right of property, in its fullest extent, has its limita- 
tions. There is, of course, the moral limitation, which be- 
Limitations lon g s to a11 rights. Property, by moral right, 
of the right. - g Qurs tQ use benevolently, not wastefully or 

wantonly; to use as we ought, not as we may please. 
We have the prerogative of controlling it, as against 



RIGHTS — PROPERTY. 



241 



others, even beyond this ; but to use property for any 
other than the best ends transcends our moral right. 

Our property is liable for the support of government and 
for our fair proportion of the burdens of society. Property 
must pay for its own protection ; and assess- Some of its 
ments, to this extent, may be rightfully col- liabilities, 
lected, even without the owner's consent. But beyond 
this, in great emergencies, the government may use pri- 
vate property for the public good, affording compensation 
where this is possible. In the pressure of war, private 
buildings may be appropriated to public uses, or even de- 
molished, to afford scope for military operations. If com- 
pensation is possible afterward, it is well ; but if not, the 
right to devote the property to such necessary public use 
must still exist. The constitution of the United States, 
which forbids such use without compensation, expresses 
only the general propriety, not the absolute right. A 
private individual may, in a similar way, overstep the or- 
dinary restrictions, in regard to property, to perform an act 
of common humanity, to feed the starving or rescue the 
perishing, or even to save other more valuable property 
from destruction. The right of property arises under the 
great law of benevolence, and exists in subordination to 
that law. 

In exchange of property, the true principle is, to ask 
and offer what is equivalent in value — -to give what, in the 
market, will exchange for that which is re- Law of 
ceived. Any other aim is dishonest, a viola- exchange, 
tion of the rights of property. This is true commercial 
integrity. It is opposed to all sharp bargaining, and to 
all scheming, by which the more valuable is obtained in 
exchange for the less. There is abundant opportunity for 
skill and sagacity and shrewdness in business ; but these 



242 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



qualities are to be employed in determining the real value 
of commodities, and what, and when, it is expedient to 
buy or sell, not in getting the advantage in exchange. An 
honest bargain is advantageous to both parties, and would 
be entered upon even if all the facts in the case were un- 
derstood by both. The boast of having bought an article 
for less than its value is an unworthy one, as really dis- 
honorable as the boast of having passed base coin. Yet 
the perceptions of men are very obtuse on the subject. 
" It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer ; but when he 
is gone his way, then he boasteth." Of course, the true 
principle of exchange must take account of the condition 
of the market, and permit an article, under pressure, to be 
purchased for less than its ordinary value. All such limita- 
tions are involved in the principle itself. 

The ordinary business maxim, to assume that every man 
in trade will attend to his own interests, is, by no means, a 
Business sa ^ e principle of conduct. This maxim makes 
maxim. the simple the prey of the shrewd. Every 

man is, in some sense, his neighbor's keeper, even in a 
business transaction ; and if he finds him failing in discern- 
ment, he is to protect his interests. 

In the matter of setting forth the qualities of the com- 
modities offered for sale, duty will vary with circumstances. 
Duty of the Every opportunity must be afforded for ex- 
vender, amination. Concealed defects must be dis- 
closed. All that is said in commendation must be truth. 
The vender must see that the price he asks is a just and 
fair one ; and if the buyer is manifestly acting under some 
illusion, or mistake, he is to be set right. Beyond this the 
seller is not, generally, called upon to offer his judgment in 
reference to the advantage of the purchase. 

Commercial honesty requires the correction of all errors, 



RIGHTS — PROPERTY. 



243 



on either side. If the goods do not correspond with the 
bill of sale, or if a mistake has been made in the trans- 
fer, honesty requires that the matter be set correction 

right. of errors.' 

In general, the standard of value is the price in the 
market. It is not often possible to test or correct this 
standard, by considerations of the cost of the standard 
article, or by its intrinsic value. Its exchange of value, 
value is the point of inquiry, and this is the market price. 
There are times, indeed, when a conscientious man feels 
obliged to look beyond the temporary condition of the 
market. He may have every reason to believe that the 
present price is the result of some temporary excitement, 
and that he who buys, at such a price, will inevitably 
suffer. Can it be right to sell at such prices? or must the 
general market price be the standard for honest men, in- 
stead of the temporary price? There are practical diffi- 
culties in the case, which preclude a general answer to the 
inquiry. Each case must be decided in its own light. 
The alternative to a sale, at the market price, will com- 
monly be to suspend business until the speculative move- 
ment has passed. This may often be impracticable. 
Hence the practical rule, for honest business, admitting of 
few exceptions, is to exchange at current rates. 

An effort to raise or depress prices, by shrewd manage- 
ment, as in securing a monopoly or producing a glut, mak- 
ing a profit out of the loss of others, is utterly Managing the 
unjustifiable. A man of scrupulous integrity market - 
would as soon take what does not belong to him, by any 
other indirection. Extravagant prices, forced by a special 
and pressing necessity, it is not right to accept. If a king, 
in the crisis of battle, offers his kingdom for a horse, it 
cannot be right to accept the offer. In such emergencies 



244 



.MURAL SCIENCE. 



there is no market price ; and transactions must be gov- 
erned by those primary considerations which lie at the 
foundation of values. In cases of general scarcity, as in a 
famine, the usual law which governs prices must prevail. 
It is often duty to distribute to the needy at prices below 
the market rates, but in deference to the claims of charity, 
and not of commercial honesty. Cicero, in his " Offices," 
proposes an instance under this general class : 

" A ship laden with corn, on its way from Alexandria to 
Rhodes, while a famine exists at Rhodes, passes several 
Cicero's other corn vessels bound for the same port, 

example. When the vessel has reached its destination, 
shall the master sell his corn for what he can get, conceal- 
ing the fact that such a supply is at hand, or shall he tell 
the facts, and then find a market for his corn?" Cicero 
decides that he must tell, and that to do otherwise is to 
act the part of a swindler. 

The law of wages is the same as that which regulates 
other prices. The market rate is, in general, that which 
Law of the- employer is bound to offer. There are 

wages. instances in which it may be necessary to look 

behind this, and correct a prevalent injustice, but, in ordi- 
nary cases, the resultant of forces represented in the market 
involves more wisdom than any individual judgment. The 
fact, too, that it is impossible to employ labor, on any large 
scale, at wages materially above the market price, will 
justify adherence to that price. For the surest way to 
correct the market and elevate wages is not to refuse to 
employ the labor, but to open for it every possible channel. 
The price will advance under the increased demand. 

The price of labor by right depends upon what the 
laborer can accomplish, and not upon his personal wants. 
Every laborer needs all that he can earn; if he receives 



RIGHTS — PROPERTY. 



245 



less than this, he is wronged ; if more, because he needs 
more, it is charity. If there be any reason in morals why 
a man's wages should be above those of a De pends on 
woman, it must be because he earns more, can ablllt y- 
accomplish more work, and not because his wants are 
greater. If the wages of woman were increased, she 
would assume a part of the responsibilities woman's 
which now fall upon man. It is to be ob- wages, 
served that it is power of accomplishment, rather than 
the actual amount accomplished, in a particular employ- 
ment, which is the basis of wages. In some varieties of 
work a boy may be as useful as a man ; but the boy can- 
not, therefore, demand a man's wages. If you call a man 
to do a boy's work, you occupy his powers — call him away 
from work suited to his capacities — and must pay for the 
power you engage. , That a man and a woman should be 
employed in the same service with equal efficiency, and 
the man receive a higher compensation, does not neces- 
sarily imply injustice or wrong. It does imply that the 
man is out of his place, because his powers are not em- 
ployed to advantage. If, on the whole, in the rough work 
which calls for wages, with all allowance for liabilities to 
interruption, man is the more powerful working force, then 
there is a moral ground for difference in the wages of men 
and women. 

But these principles apply only to those varieties of ser- 
vice which have an exchangeable value, and which are 
quoted in the market. The highest forms of work above 
service which the world needs, and which men wa g es - 
can render, lie entirely above the plane of wages. They 
have no equivalent in money. Of this higher kind is much 
of the work of the faithful preacher and pastor, the mis- 
sionary, the philanthropist, and even of the patriot soldier. 



246 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



The pittance, furnished in money, does not pay for such 
service and sacrifice. We are ashamed to offer or receive a 
price for such work. The money compensation is regarded 
simply as a necessary outfit for the service, or, if more 
munificent, a grateful recognition of it. In this higher 
domain lies, to a very great extent, woman's peculiar 
work— that of the wife, the mother, the daughter. For 
these higher services, the highest that can be rendered to 
humanity, there is no price. When we talk of wages, the 
wife becomes the housekeeper, the mother becomes the 
nurse, and the daughter the hired servant and paid domes- 
tic. Wages afford no expression of the value of such work. 
The claim Yet the claim of the wife, the mother, the 
which arises, daughter, is a real and substantial one, higher 
than the claim for wages. It is a claim for protection, and 
favor, and love, and all the material good which the hus- 
band, the father, or the son can bestow from his poverty or 
his wealth. The woman in the family is neither a beggar 
nor a hireling. The law, in adjusting her claims, recognizes 
her right to wages ; but this is only a rough attempt to save 
to her a remnant, after her higher rights have been denied. 
It is true that the life of many women does not lie in this 
higher plane. They are obliged to fall back upon their 
power as laborers, and engage in the struggle for wages. 
They must often work at a disadvantage ; but they have a 
right to such a place as they can occupy in this field, and 
to wages corresponding with the work they do. 

Offenses against the right of property appear in all the 
forms in which it is possible for one man to secure what 
violations of belongs to another. The grosser breaches of 
the right. t j ie fight are condemned by public sentiment, 
and are disreputable ; but the less odious forms often in- 
volve grievous wrong. To contract a debt without pro- 



RIGHTS — PROPERTY. 



247 



spective ability to pay at the appointed time, or without a 
definite purpose to pay, is a common form of failure. To 
defer the payment beyond the time without any arrange- 
ment with the creditor, or to neglect the payment of wages 
that are due, is a still more frequent failure. These things 
betoken an absence of neighborly regard — a want of respect 
for the rights of others. To neglect a debt until it is 
legally uncollectable, and then account the 

, . • 1 -i • i-i Legal release. 

claim as liquidated, is a more gross dishonesty. 
Morally debts are never outlawed, unless, originally, they 
existed with some special limitation. There is, doubtless, 
propriety in the law which sets a limit to the collectability 
of a debt, but such a law cannot discharge the moral obli- 
gation. The proper force of bankrupt laws is not in any 
power to release the debtor from his moral obligation. 
They have no such power ; but it is in the protection they 
afford to the debtor, in his effort to recover himself and 
acquire the ability to meet his obligations. The release 
from indebtedness is technical and legal, not real. 

The immorality of gambling lies not so much in the fact 
that it involves the obtaining of money without an equiva- 
lent, which gives it the character of ordinary i mmora i ity0 f 
fraud; because the transaction is understood e ambhn &- 
— agreed upon by both parties, each encountering the risk 
in the hope of gain. Undoubtedly the transaction is a dis- 
honest one, in this view. But the chief mischief lies in its 
effect upon the character, unsettling all wholesome habits 
of thought and action, and stimulating the imagination 
with the hope of easy and speedy wealth, without corre- 
sponding labor. Gambling, in all its forms, in the miner's 
tent or at the stock exchange, appeals to this infirmity of 
human nature, and begets a reckless and unprincipled char- 
acter. There are modes of conducting business, generally 



248 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



considered legitimate, which involve much of this element 
of risk and expectation. A single turn in the market may 
make or ruin a fortune. The man who prays " lead us 
not into temptation " will shun these ways. 

The problem of harmonizing the conflicting claims of 
labor and capital, which is so pressing and disturbing in 
conflict of our day, belongs to social rather than to ethi- 
capitai. cal science. When the right relation has been 

fully ascertained and set forth, then the law of righteous- 
ness in the case must be urged and enforced. Christian 
civilization is looking, more or less hopefully, for such a 
discovery. It has not yet appeared. It can scarcely be 
questioned that our present method, that of depending 
upon the spontaneous competition of industrial and com- 
mercial interests, to determine the distribution of the joint 
product of labor and capital, is very crude and imperfect, 
especially since the natural operation of these forces is so 
constantly interfered with by disturbing combinations on 
one side and on the other. But until social science has 
furnished some better device we must rely upon the old 
method. Rude and unsatisfactory as it is, society can be 
made very comfortable and prosperous, with an abundant 
application on every side of the ethical principles of neigh- 
borly forbearance and good-will. 

In concluding the subject of rights, it may be well to 
call attention again to the fact that the specific rights now 
concluding presented are but particular applications of the 
remark. comprehensive right of well-being; and that 

the catalogue of specific rights may be extended to em- 
brace every human interest. I have undertaken to present 
only the more prominent examples. Let us turn to the 
subject of duties. 



CHAPTER VI. 



DUTIES — PIETY. 

DUTIES are distinguished from rights, in having, as their 
basis, faculties — power to do. They are all comprehended 
in the generic duty of benevolence. They are origin of 
alike, in that they imply regard for well-being duties, 
for its own sake ; they differ, in that they present different 
channels for benevolent action, or different forms of that 
action. 

The leading duty of man is piety — benevolence exercised 
toward God — regard for him for what he is, in his being 
and character. The duty is expressed in the piety its 
command, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God nature, 
with all thy heart." He is to stand before all other beings 
in our regard, because he is before them. So we neces- 
sarily apprehend him. Since his being is greater, more 
exalted than all other being, benevolence toward him must 
give him his proper place, must make him supreme. 

Piety, in its root and substance, is benevolence ; but the 
most distinctly conscious exercise of the pious heart is not 
benevolence, but rather obedience to specific i ncon scious 
commands. The benevolence of the child exercise - 
toward the parent shows itself in obedience ; so of the 
creature toward God. " This is the love of God, that we 
keep his commandments." 

Love of complacency — approbation of God's character, 
and delight in it — is necessarily involved in piety. It is 

249 



250 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



the certain result of a benevolent attitude toward God. 
Benevolence is, doubtless, the love which the law requires ; 
involves f° r love to God and love to our neighbor are 
complacency. en j ome d m t ne same precept, under one and 
the same expression, and must, therefore, be of the same 
essential nature. Any delight in God, without benevo- 
lence, is not the love of obedience. 

Piety involves a recognition of personal relations with 
God, and the exercise of the feelings of dependence and 
Personal gratitude and filial confidence. A benevolent 

recognition 

of God. heart places us m the relation of children in 

personal affection and friendship. It leads to the exercise 
of reverence and awe, and all the emotions naturally ex- 
pressed in worship. These are all provided for in the 
human constitution, and follow spontaneously the attitude 
of good-will toward God. 

Piety is the moral or virtuous element in religion con- 
sidered as a fact of experience. It is the element of duty 
Relation to — that wmcn man ' 1S called upon to render. It 
religion. ma y ^ e ca u e( j h um an element, in that it is 

a human exercise, though divinely moved. In religion as 
an experience, there is another element — the divine — the 
supernatural communication of God with the soul. Relig- 
ion is not wholly benevolence, obedience, duty-doing — 
not wholly human. It brings pardon, peace, and life — 
divine gifts — God's response to man's obedience. The 
entire experience is expressed in such scriptures as these : 
"If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my 
Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make 
our abode with him." "Behold, I stand at the door and 
knock ; if any man hear my voice and open the door, I 
will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with 
me." Religion thus consists of two elements — duties and 



DUTIES — PIETY. 25 I 

experiences — what we are required to render, and what 
God bestows in response. 

True morality, or virtue, always involves religion; for 
true morality is benevolence, and benevolence implies re- 
gard for God above all other beings. A be- Mor£ , lity and 
nevolence which should pass by the claims of rell g lon - 
God would be an absurdity. But benevolence looking 
toward God is piety. Every truly moral or virtuous man 
is essentially a pious man ; and piety is the duty-element 
in religion. The other experiences attend in their time 
and place. 

It follows, of course, that there can be no true religion 
without morality. Any mere movement of pious feeling, 
in the form of awe, reverence, adoration, joy, is Religion 

. without 

not genuine piety, apart from a committal of morality, 
the will to a true regard for God as shown in benevolent 
obedience. Thus religion becomes genuine by being 
grounded in morality. Attempts have sometimes been 
made to separate these two, which are naturally insepa- 
rable. Moralists, so called, forget God, and call themselves 
virtuous ; religionists discard morality, and call themselves 
pious. They are equally and fundamentally mistaken. 

Still further, it should be said that the natural approach 
to morality, at least in mature life, is through religion. 
The most potent force in overcoming sin is the Morality 

. . . . . attained by 

constraining motives which religion as a system religion, 
of truth presents ; the great facts of God, his character, his 
providence, his government, and his love to the unworthy, 
are the considerations which move to repentance and to 
virtue. The first outgoing of the soul in benevolent regard 
is toward him who is the embodiment of excellence and 
goodness. Men become virtuous in becoming religious. 
The reverse is a philosophical possibility, but scarcely a 



252 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



practical fact. There is little power in abstract truth to 
move to virtue. Regard for the good of being may be 
seen to be virtue. The human will may be seen to be free- 
to take the virtuous attitude. Virtue may be seen to be 
excellent and right — benevolence, the only true principle 
of life. The heart will still cling to its idols, with a result 
like that in Paul's case : " To will is present with me, but 
how to perform that which is good, I find not." The 
motives of religion alone are effective. Hence, morality 
prevails only where the truths of religion are known and 
inculcated. The intuitive apprehension which all men 
have of virtue is not effective to produce virtue. The phi- 
losophy of morality is useful and elevating, but practical 
morality does not spring immediately from philosophy. 
Man's first great duty is to come to God — to renounce 
self-dependence, and put himself under heavenly guid- 
ance. Thus, morality is realized through religion, and the 
extension of morality in the world depends upon the ex- 
tension of true religion. 

The most common opposite of piety is not positive im- 
opposite piety — contempt of God ; but rather a life of 
of piety. self-pleasing, and neglect of God. 

Piety as a duty involves the obligation to observe all 
the ordinances of God's appointment — the duties of relig- 
Duty of ion. Foremost among these stands the duty 
worship. Q £ p ra y er — 0 f worship. This exercise is a 
communication of the creature with the Creator. If such 
communication be possible, it is an obvious duty. The 
regard for God must show itself in expressions of regard, 
in acknowledgment of benefits received, in confession of 
sin, in seeking guidance, and help, and blessing. 

This is worship, involving adoration, thanksgiving, con- 
fession, supplication. The propriety of such approach is 



DUTIES — PIETY. 



253 



clear; the only question is as to its possibility. This is 
strictly a theological question, and the answer can only be 
suggested here. _ 

^ Possibility 

That prayer — communication of the soul of prayer, 
with God — is possible, may be maintained, (1) From the 
nature of the case. God has made man dependent — 
needing his help, and guidance, and access to himself. He 
will afford the opportunity. (2) From the general in- 
stinctive movement of human nature. All tribes and races 
pray, and have always done so. (3) From Scripture. 
Prayer is everywhere presented as a privilege, and enjoined 
as a duty. 

Speculative objections to prayer are often felt, in refer- 
ence to which it may be well to offer a word: (1) God is 
benevolent, disposed to do all possible good. speculative 
He can need no urging from his creatures. objections. 
True, but he can do more for his creatures when asked, as 
a benevolent parent can for his children. The recognition 
of dependence on God, and the invocation of his help, give 
him an opportunity to do what, otherwise, it would not be 
best to do. (2) God works by established laws, and we 
cannot suppose that he will modify his plans, or rearrange 
his work, upon the application of his creatures. I answer, 
there is some misapprehension here. We cannot suppose 
that God is fettered by his own laws, so that he cannot re- 
spond to the expressed w r ants of his creatures. To be thus 
restrained by the machinery of his own devising, is a char- 
acteristic of a finite being, and not of the infinite. God's 
laws cannot hinder his doing what needs to be done. 
(3) Prayer can only be valuable and influential in its reac- 
tion upon the petitioner. It does him good to pray, and 
beyond this it can effect nothing. Then, when we discover 
this fact, there is an end of prayer. No one could ever 



254 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



pray with such a theory of prayer. The objection makes 
prayer impossible, and the instinctive aspirations of men an 
illusion. 

Social and public prayer is as clearly appropriate as pri- 
vate prayer. The family is, in an important sense, a unity, 
social and with common wants and trials, and joys and 

public wor- . 

ship. blessings. How fit to approach, in this capac- 

ity, the Giver of all good ! The larger community of fam- 
ilies has a similar demand for common worship. 

THE SABBATH. 

Since public worship is an obvious duty, and public re- 
ligious instruction an obvious want, a stated time appro- 
a sabbath priated to this duty and this work is desirable, 
desirable. g Q muc \ l j § clear from the nature of the case ; 
but what amount of time and what precise period we are 
to set apart for these uses, is a matter of revelation. The 
Sabbath, in its principle, is a law of nature ; in its form, a 
positive institution. That positive enactment 

Its institution. . 

we find m the fourth commandment : " Re- 
member the Sabbath-day to keep it holy." The form of 
the precept indicates a previous establishment of the Sab- 
bath. Of this we have the record in Genesis, which pre- 
sents the institution as coeval with the creation of man ; an 
indication that the Sabbath was for the race, and not for 
a particular people. A Sabbath, divinely appointed, was 
desirable, to secure uniformity and to give authority. A 
successful Sabbath, without such authority, would seem 
impossible. 

The intrinsically important elements in the institution are 
the proportion of time and the precise period. The first, 
divine Wisdom alone could determine. Human experience 
would probably never definitely decide the point. The last 



DUTIES — PIETY. 



255 



is a matter upon which our judgment might act with more 
success. The day is for rest from secular pursuits, and for 
religious culture and worship — a day to lead Two impor . 
out the thought toward God. That day, then, tant elements - 
most distinctly associated with the manifestation of God, is 
the one naturally indicated. Thus, at the beginning, it 
commemorated the work of creation. If we could not fix 
upon the day, in advance, we can, at least, justify the 
divine selection. 

Upon the consummation of the higher manifestation of 
God in the work of redemption, it would seem desirable 
that the Sabbath should carry with it the asso- A change 
ciations connected with this higher work. If desirable, 
the old day were retained, the old associations would pre- 
vail. It would be difficult to turn the thought connected 
with the Sabbath from the old channel. A change of the 
Sabbath to another day — a day associated with the crown- 
ing event in the work of redemption — would serve this end. 
Thus the Sabbath would be enriched by the accumulated 
memories and associations. Such a change would seem 
desirable, were it only allowable. 

As a historical fact, this change was made early in the 
Christian era, and has been maintained down to the present 
time. As to the authority for the change, only The change 
a word or two can be suggested here. The res- made - 
urrection occurred upon the first day of the week. The dis- 
ciples gathered to consider the marvelous event. The Sav- 
iour appeared in the midst of them, and blessed them. A 
week later, on the first day, as they were gathered, the 
Saviour came again. Six weeks later, on the first day, the 
Pentecost, the promised gift of the Spirit was bestowed. 
Such memories and experiences gathering about the day 
made it sacred in the regard of the disciples. It would 



256 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



have required a divine prohibition to prevent their assem- 
bling, thenceforth, on the first day. No such prohibition 
appeared, and it became the gathering- day for Christians. 
The indications of this, in the New Testament, are few, but 
they are significant. In Acts xx. 6, 7, we read that Paul 
tarried seven days with the disciples at Troas ; and on the 
first day of the week, when the disciples came together to 
break bread, Paul preached to them, " ready to depart on 
the morrow." The obvious implication is, that Paul waited 
for the usual gathering on the first day, improved the op- 
portunity with a long discourse, and left the next day. 
The first day was the gathering-day of Christians at Troas. 
In I. Cor. xvi. 2 Paul directs that the people, on the first 
day of the week, shall lay by their contributions, " that 
there be no gatherings when I come," implying that they 
were together on that day. In Rev. i. 10 the prophet 
says: " I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day," indicating 
that at that time a day was designated as the Lord's day 
— a name by which the Christian Sabbath has been known 
from that day to this. We find no definite, express com- 
mand changing the Sabbath; but the manner of the 
change harmonizes with the genius of the gospel system. 
Other ordinances — public worship, baptism, and the Lord's 
Supper — were instituted in a similar manner, and in the 
same way the whole ceremonial system was abrogated, and 
the spiritual instituted. 

That the ancient law of the Sabbath remains, only 
modified in one of its features, as a positive institution, is 
obligation probable from the fact that all the reasons 

permanent. {qy ^ institution exist as of old. RatioilC 

manente lex manet — the law stands while the reason 
stands. The introduction of the precept enforcing the 
Sabbath into the decalogue, among the principles of 



DUTIES — PIETY. 



257 



fundamental morality, is another indication of its per- 
manence. 

The proper mode of the observance of the Sabbath we 
gather from Scripture, and from considerations derived 
from the nature and purpose of the Sabbath. p rope r ob- 
Like all other ordinances and institutions, it is a servance. 
means, and not an end. " The Sabbath was made for man, 
and not man for the Sabbath." It is subordinate to the 
claims of benevolence. Yet its chief and highest utility to 
man doubtless lies in its adaptation to religious uses. For 
these purposes, it must be protected from the intrusion of 
secular business and pleasure. There is a growing tendency 
in our land to make it a day of recreation and amusement, 
after the fashion of continental Europe. Such an appro- 
priation of the day would degrade it from its highest uses. 

Many cases of doubt can be proposed, as to duty in the 
observance of the Sabbath. Such cases usually bring with 
them the light in view of which they are to be cases of 
decided. So that an honest purpose to respect doubt, 
the Sabbath be maintained, these particular cases are less 
important than they may seem ; and men of equal intelli- 
gence and integrity may differ in the decision of them. 
Students, perhaps, need special caution in reference to the 
uses of the Sabbath. They are not taken away from the 
scenes of daily thought and labor. The associations of 
every-day life gather about them ; yet none more need a 
Sabbath. 

The duty of piety includes the obligation to extend in 
the world the knowledge of God, and the institutions of 
religion; not merely as a means of securing Dutytopro . 
the well-being of men, but as promoting that mote reli £ ion - 
regard and honor which belong to God in his own right. 
It is not for us to say that, in his exaltation and independ- 



258 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



ence, he does not need this service. We have abundant 
reason from his Word, and from the nature of the case, to 
believe that the regard and love of his creatures are a good 
to him, and that he feels a loss and a wrong in their in- 
gratitude and neglect. Loyalty to God must lead to all 
reasonable effort to exalt his name and extend his worship 
in the earth. The view is very inadequate which bases 
this duty solely on the wants of men. The claims of God 
are paramount. 



CHAPTER VII. 



DUTIES — PHILANTHROPY AND PATRIOTISM. 

NEXT to piety stands the duty of philanthropy, which 
is benevolence exercised toward mankind — regard for man 
as man, because of his value, the susceptibility The duty _ 
of well-being in him. its nature - 

Philanthropy is not a mere emotion, but is positive and 
responsible action — an attitude of will. It is exercised 
toward all men, irrespective of character or relations, the 
good and the bad, kindred and strangers. The duty is 
enjoined in the command : " Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
as thyself." The duty extends to enemies as to friends: 
" Love ye your enemies, do good to them that hate you, 
and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute 
you." It coexists with complacency, when the object is 
worthy ; and displacency, when the object is unworthy. 
There is a philanthropy of mere sentiment — a liking for 
our kind, which is natural and common to man, and in 
degree to the brute — a kindly affection prompting to 
kindly deeds, more prominent in some than in others. 
This is not inconsistent with the virtue, but may exist 
without it. 

There has been a tendency, at times, to set philanthropy 
and religion in opposition to each other. They are, in fact, 
inseparable ; neither is genuine without the Relation to 
other. True benevolence comprehends them religion, 
both. This is both rational and Scriptural. " He hath 
shown thee, O man, what is good ; and what doth the 

259 



260 



MURAL SCIENCE. 



Lord require of thee but to do justly, to love mercy, and 
to walk humbly with thy God? " " Pure religion, and un- 
defined before God and the Father is this, to visit the 
fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep 
himself unspotted from the world." 

True philanthropy prompts to every honest effort for the 
good of man. It does not aim to promote one interest 
at the sacrifice of another, but is favorable to 

Its scope. ' 

every real interest. A true philanthropist may 
devote himself to a special work in the service of mankind, 
on the principle of division of labor, or because of spe- 
cial adaptedness or ability. Whatever his work may be, 
whether in the way of spiritual or intellectual or material 
advantage, he is still entitled to the honor of a philanthro- 
pist. It is somewhat common to appropriate the name to 
those who endeavor to benefit men in their outward condi- 
tion ; as to Howard, who labored for the improvement of 
prisons and hospitals. The distinction is arbitrary and 
technical. Paul, who preached the gospel from land to 
land, was as true a friend to man. Every good man is a 
philanthropist. 

The best evidence of genuine philanthropy is not in the 
interest felt for some distant object, which appeals to the 
Test of phi- imagination without the offensive concomitants 
lanthropy. Q f ac t ua j present misery, or for popular enter- 
prises, in which it is easy, or fashionable, or romantic to be 
interested, but in the regard shown for those whom we can 
reach, and the help afforded to the needy by our side, even 
when a love of ease, or a fastidious taste, or popular prej- 
udice, would tempt to forget the work. If the parable of 
the good Samaritan had been uttered in our land, the test 
would have been applied to our national infirmity — con- 
tempt for the colored race. This crime mars much that is 



DUTIES — PHILANTHROPY AND PATRIOTISM. 26 1 



plausible in religion among us, and pretentious in philan- 
thropy. " Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of these, ye 
did it not to ME." 

Misanthropy is not the usual opposite of philanthropy. 
This is a feeling of aversion or repugnance to mankind, 
with corresponding action. It is, of course, op- 

1 iMi 1 it 1 1 The opposite. 

posed to philanthropy ; but a hie devoted to 
personal advancement, regardless of human interests, using 
men for one's own aggrandizement or pleasure, or neglect- 
ing them entirely, is equally opposed to philanthropy, and 
far more common. 

Patriotism is benevolence toward our own country — the 
people of our own land or nation. Love of country — -a 
sentiment of interest in the people to which we Patriotism 
belong — is natural to us. This sentiment, sus- as a virtue - 
tained and directed by benevolence, is the virtue of patriot- 
ism. The natural feeling, associated with the impulsive 
action to which it prompts, without benevolence, is senti- 
mental patriotism. This lower form of patriotism is useful 
in society, gives unity and vitality to the nation, even in 
the absence of the genuine virtue. The impulse which 
rallies the frivolous, the selfish, and the vicious to the de- 
fense of the flag is the patriotism of sentiment, and not of 
principle. It follows the flag in a just or an unjust cause. 

True patriotism is not inconsistent with general benevo- 
lence, but is required by it. In the nature of the case, 
those with whom we are associated have claims Required by 
upon us which others have not. We are spe- benevolence, 
cially responsible for their interests, as having special ability 
to serve them. " He that provideth not for his own, and 
especially for those of his own house, hath denied the faith, 
and is worse than an infidel." But since patriotism is 
always regulated and limited by benevolence, it can never 



262 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



require us, in the interest of our country, to trespass upon 
the rights and interests of another people. It is a blind 
sentiment, and not a principle of duty, which- makes this 
demand. " Our country, right or wrong," is the watch- 
word of passion, and not of virtuous patriotism. The sen- 
No wrong timent is pernicious — subversive of the true 
toothers. interests of our own country, as of those of 
others. The true patriot does, indeed, stand with his 
country : when wrong, to recall her from a course of ag- 
gression and injustice ; when right, to maintain the right. 
Of patriotism, thus regulated and elevated, the mass of 
men are wont to be intolerant ; and the true patriot often 
finds his sternest conflict with those who are controlled by 
the blind passion of patriotism. A low jealousy of other 
nations, a readiness to take a belligerent attitude toward 
them, is by no means indicative of true patriotism. The 
country may well pray to be delivered from such friends. 
Hatred of the " British " is not love of country. 

Intense party spirit is opposed to true patriotism. It is 
devotion to a faction, and not devotion to the country. It 
party spirit * s not rare tnat a political party will peril the 
opposed. welfare of the country to promote its own in- 
terests, and will brand as a traitor to the party the man 
who, from fidelity to the country, withstands the corrupt 
movements of his party. Political parties are, doubtless, 
necessary and wholesome ; but they must be subordinate 
to the demands of patriotism. 

Disrespect toward rulers is unpatriotic — a disposition to 
discredit their motives, to injure their reputation, to em- 
Disrespect barrass their action. Even w r hen the ruler is 
to rulers. personally unworthy of respect, there is some- 
thing due to the position he holds. To treat him with the 
consideration due to the office is respect for the nation, and 



DUTIES — PHILANTHROPY AND PATRIOTISM. 263 



not for the man. To have rulers whom we cannot respect 
personally, is a source of corruption and of danger. We 
fail to discriminate between the man and his office, and 
contempt for the man grows into contempt for the govern- 
ment. The habit of disparaging an opposing candidate 
puts him at a disadvantage when he has entered upon his 
office. A large portion of the people have been taught to 
despise him, and they do not readily accord to him the 
honor which is his due. Thus, intense and unscrupulous 
partisanship makes him, who should be the head of the 
whole people, merely the leader of a party. The magis- 
trate, in turn, is too apt to accept this position, to recognize 
his political friends as the friends of the government, and 
his opponents as its enemies. Such are some of the fruits 
of party spirit not regulated by patriotism. 

A deep sense of wrong in the country and the govern- 
ment sometimes leads to unpatriotic sentiment and action. 
The earnest opponents of slavery were, in past wrong in 

. government 

years, under great temptation. ( They were in a temptation, 
danger of failing to appreciate the real value of the gov- 
ernment, and of assailing slavery by acts and measures 
scarcely consistent with patriotism. It is the common 
danger of those who rise up against a wrong sustained by 
government. 

A strong provincial or sectional sentiment, setting aside 
proper national feeling and interest in the country as 
a whole, is inconsistent with true patriotism. intense P ro- 
This was the failure in Southern society. The vincialism - 
people were Virginians, Carolinians, Georgians, Southerners, 
not Americans. They had not enough of national interest 
and feeling to stand by a stable government. 

Every organization, political, industrial, or social, which 
tends to clannishness, which weakens the common interest 



264 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



and diminishes the proper national feeling, is inconsistent 
with the highest patriotism. Secret political and social or- 
unpatriotic ganizations, as existing in this and other lands, 

organizations. ^ often q{ ^ nature Xhey tend tQ disQr _ 

ganize society, to sunder the ties upon which social and 
national unity depends. 

All attempts to supersede the regular and wholesome 
action of the government in the protection of the interests 
of society and in the punishment of crime, invoking the 
intervention of self-constituted organizations or the vio- 
lence of the mob, are exhibitions of the lack of intelligent 
patriotism. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



DUTIES — SELF-CULTURE. 

EVERY human being is under obligation to make the 
most of himself — to become all that is possible to him, in 
excellence, efficiency, and capacity for good. 
The work of making such attainments may be ai?d n reasons. 
called self-culture. 

The reasons for the obligation are, first, the intrinsic value 
of every man's being, the absolute good which it involves ; 
and, secondly, its value in relation to the good of others. 
Every human life involves good, in both these aspects ; 
and the amount of good depends on the culture attained — 
the perfection of faculty, and susceptibility. 

The work of self-culture pertains to every department 
of our nature — the moral and spiritual, the intellectual, the 
emotional, the aesthetic, and the physical ; and Extends to 
the demand in these various directions is more uities. 
or less pressing, according to the bearing upon our welfare 
or our usefulness. In itself, a symmetrical culture is de- 
sirable, a harmonious development of all the faculties and 
susceptibilities. This is the true ideal, but it is not always 
attainable nor always to be aimed at. The The true 
aim of every one must be to walk in the path ldeal * 
of duty, and to pursue that form and degree of culture 
which lies in the line of duty. He must meet his obliga- 
tion; he may or may not attain to any high standard of 
culture. Personal welfare and usefulness both require that 

265 



266 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



duty have the first place ; and it is entirely possible that 
duty may not lie in the direction of the highest culture. 

Indeed, personal welfare and usefulness are 
both subordinate to the general good, or, in 
other words, to the claims of duty ; hence, the all-con- 
trolling aim of every moral being must be to maintain the 
attitude of benevolence. Even* form of personal good is 
subordinate to this. To maintain a right moral attitude is 
rather a matter of self-control than of self-culture. 

The religious faculties and susceptibilities stand first in 
their claim upon our attention, requiring what we may call 
Spiritual spiritual culture. It is desirable that our 
culture. spiritual nature should respond fully to the 

known facts of the spiritual world — that the truths we 
intellectually apprehend and embrace should move the 
sensibility, and stand before us as permanent realities. It 
is unworthy of beings of a spiritual nature, that the great 
truths of the spiritual world, truths pertaining to God and 
our own immortal being, should seem to us unreal and 
dreamlike, accepted in the thought, but not reaching the 
heart. These are the great truths of the universe, and 
should have their due place in the soul. This condition of 
Added to experience and of life is not identical with 
virtue. Tightness of heart or a correct moral attitude. 

It commences with such a state of heart, but extends to 
the intelligence and the affections. It is not attained by 
mere exercise of the will, because it is not simply an atti- 
tude of the will ; but it is a matter of culture and of 
growth, like even* permanent habit of the soul. The first 
right step is the commitment of the will to the truth, a 
treatment of the truth as true — the exercise of faith, in the 
sense in which it is a duty. Continued contact with the 
truth will bring the soul permanently under its power. 



DUTIES — SELF-CULTURE. 



267 



This is a work of time and of culture — of contemplation of 
spiritual realities, and communion with God in prayer, and 
in the ordinances of religion. It is, of course, Progressive 
• a progressive work, like all culture, and can work " 
never be said to have reached its limit. It requires time 
and faithful endeavor, like every other excellent attain- 
ment ; but the result is worth the expenditure. In the 
technical language of Theology, this work is often called 
sanctification, and results in permanence of the religious 
life and enlargement of spiritual power. All the spiritual 
faculties and susceptibilities share in the improvement, and 
this growth must continue until, as the Apostle expresses 
it, " we all come in the unity of faith, and the knowledge 
of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure 
of the stature of the fullness of Christ." 

At such spiritual culture it is the duty of every man to 
aim. A good degree of it is attainable in every walk of 
life ; and what are often reckoned as disad- 
vantages may be made to contribute to spirit- 
ual growth. It is to be distinguished from that moral state 
which we call virtue or Tightness of heart. It embraces 
virtue, and is based upon it, but involves conditions and 
experiences outside of the attitude of the will. 

Intellectual culture is so obviously a want and a duty 
as scarcely to require mention. It is a condition of self- 
satisfaction, -and of power for good. To what Duty of 

intellectual 

extent it is to be pursued, how much of time culture, 
and energy should be devoted to it, are questions which 
must be carefully settled in each particular case. There 
are duties more pressing than that of high intellectual cult- 
ure and attainment. The claims of dependent parents on 
their children — of the country, in an emergency, upon its 
young men, and other duties growing out of the natural 



Attainable 
to all. 



268 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



relations, must be carefully discharged, even if the work of 
intellectual culture is thereby deferred or arrested. 

Health is not to be sacrificed in the pursuit of intellectual 
training ; for learning and culture, without health, lose 
Things to be their power and their value. Money may be 

held sub- J ■ 

ordinate. freely expended, and the opportunities of ac- 
quiring it relinquished, because intellectual culture is better 
as a possession and a power. Time may be generously 
devoted to the work, because the time that remains will 
bring richer results ; and it is doubtful whether any ex- 
penditure of time, on the part of the young, could be more 
satisfactory, irrespective of results, than that devoted to in- 
tellectual pursuits. The opportunity of immediate useful- 
ness may be deferred, in the prospect of higher usefulness 
to come. The young, in their ardor, sometimes press into 
the field, when they would better serve their friends, their 
country, and the world by awaiting the drill and discipline 
required to make their lives effective. A favorable open- 
ing for a settlement in life may be bravely disregarded ; 
for one who is well prepared for life will find in this 
superior preparation more abundant openings. 

Inability to secure the advantage of schools will not 
excuse from the duty of intellectual self-culture. Much is 
Duty under still possible in the way of self-improvement ; 

disadvan- . 

tages. and the more difficult the attainment, the more 

useful it may prove. A brave heart will transform diffi- 
culties into advantages. 

In so far as the acquisition of knowledge is involved in 
education, the useful is to be preferred to the curious, be- 
Knowiedge cause culture is to be used as well as enjoyed ; 
to be sought. an( ^ indeed the use is essential to the enjoy- 
ment For knowledge that is not useful, there can scarcely 
be a place in a course of education. But the inexperienced 



DUTIES — SELF-CULTURE. 



269 



are often deceived in their efforts to discriminate. They 
seek the knowledge which affords immediate material ad- 
vantage, in preference to that which enlarges and elevates. 
Our view of utility must comprehend man's entire nature 
and destiny. There doubtless is knowledge that is more 
curious than useful ; and a life devoted to its pursuit is a 
life of self-indulgence, literary dissipation — less degrading 
than gluttony or drunkenness, and yet to be avoided. 

Our emotional nature, the sensibility, requires care and 
culture. Upon this part of our nature many of the influ- 
ences from without, the good and the bad, culture of 
operate ; and from this source spring the im- sensibility, 
pulses which move to action, and which give effectiveness 
to auction. Motives to right action and temptations to 
wrong alike address themselves to the emotional nature. 
Our established associations, or trains of thought, are 
greatly dependent upon the sensibility. What we call 
habits, both in the realm of thought and of action, have 
their seat chiefly in the feelings. 

Power with others depends greatly upon a quick and 
generous sensibility. Personal influence, the power of one 
man over another, is the result, not chiefly of 

. Gives power. 

superior discernment or logical acumen, though 
these are helpful, but of the impulse and inspiration spring- 
ing from the emotions. It may not admit of logical ex- 
planation, but it is the secret of magnetic personal power. 

There is, properly, no moral character in the movements 
of the feelings ; but the feelings are greatly dependent 
upon the character, and are often indicative of Relation 

a 1 • 11 1 1 • to moral 

the character. As modified by the moral atti- character, 
tude, and more or less subject to the will, they fall within 
the province of obligation ; and hence, in general, appro- 
priate feelings are required of men. Still further, from the 



270 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



feelings springs the immediate impulse to action, the inter- 
nal force which rouses the soul and prompts its movements. 
Thus, the feelings are potent in determining the character ; 
and the precept of divine wisdom is rendered most appro- 
priate : " Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it 
are the issues of life." What a calamity is a perverted 
sensibility, depraved and aggravated passions and desires, 
or an imagination charged with corrupting and loathsome 
imagery! What a blessing is a pure heart, each desire 
chastened and regulated, every train of thought tending to 
elevate, and the imagination wholesome and helpful! To 
secure and maintain such a heart is a work of care and 
culture. 

It is only indirectly that we can regulate or cultivate our 
feelings. We cannot, at will, summon those which are de- 
control sirable, or dismiss the undesirable ; but we can 
indirect. gj ve direction to our thoughts, and occupy our 
minds with the things which purify and elevate, according 
to the injunction of the Apostle : " Whatsoever things are 
true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are 
just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are 
lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ; if there be 
any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these 
things." By such diligent and persistent attention to the 
things which are excellent, the imagination can be cleansed 
and elevated. 

The regulation of our associations with others is of equal 
importance. " Evil communications [associations] corrupt 
care in social §" ood morals. ' ' Corrupt and degrading feelings 
intercourse. are con t a gious, and diffuse themselves more 
readily than mischievous ideas. Falsehood in thought is, 
in general, quite obvious ; in feeling it is hidden, and the 
error enters more readily through the heart than the head. 



DUTIES — SELF-CULTURE. 



271 



A sneer is often more effective than an argument, and an 
appeal to feeling prevails when direct attempt to pervert 
the judgment would fail. Human feeling diffuses itself 
like leaven. If the contagion of impurity exists in any 
heart, it extends itself to others. Let your friendships, 
your life associations, be with the pure in heart. 

Similar importance attaches to the books which we take 
into daily companionship. Each writer infuses his own 
personality into the book which is an expression Danger from 
of his life ; and if his personal presence would books - 
corrupt, it cannot be safe to associate with him in his books. 
It is not necessary that the volume should present false 
ideas or doctrines, or any error which admits of logical ex- 
pression. A false spirit is even more dangerous. A re- 
fined and latent misanthropy, or voluptuousness, may be 
diffused through the pages, as potent and as baleful as the 
miasm which breeds fever or pestilence. Positive falsehood 
or gross sensuality attracts attention and arouses resistance, 
while the mischievous spirit springing from a corrupt sensi- 
bility, and tending to corrupt, escapes observation. The 
reader is fascinated and degraded, while he imagines him- 
self refreshed and elevated. It may not have been the 
purpose of the writer to lead astray. The mischief is in 
him, and diffuses itself like the contagion of disease. Shun 
the impure, even in their books. 

Pleasant and profitable relations with others depend more 
upon the regulation of the feelings than of the thoughts or 
ideas. The discords which disturb the family, Relations 
or society on a larger scale, do not arise from wlth others - 
difference of opinion so much as from excited feeling, which 
refuses the control of reason. Incompatibility of character, 
which interferes with the relationships of life, is the offspring 
of feeling, and not of thought. What are popularly called 



272 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



notions, as distinguished from rational convictions and prin- 
ciples, are conditions of the sensibility. There are charac- 
ters that seem to be made up of likes and dislikes, that 
have their right sides and wrong sides, that must be man- 
aged as carefully as an ill-trained animal, lest some perverse 
feeling should disturb the quiet. All such liabilities are 
unreasonable, the result of an unregulated sensibility, and 
are unworthy of beings endowed with the regulative prin- 
ciple of reason. Some persons seem to excuse themselves 
for their unreasonableness on the ground of strong feeling, 
and even to require the respect of others for their extrava- 
gances of temper which render them disagreeable. It is 
better to cover up and repress our own infirmities, while we 
defer to the weaknesses of others, as far as the requirements 
Perfection of °f 8"°°^ society ma y suggest. Perfection of 
character. character consists in the supremacy of reason, 
and such movements of the feelings as correspond with 
the occasion. To this result, self-knowledge, self-govern- 
ment, and self-culture all conspire. 



CHAPTER IX. 



DUTIES — SELF-CULTURE. 

The development and culture of the higher tastes is 
essential to completeness of character. These tastes are in 
part intellectual, and in part emotional ; but it Esthetic 
is convenient to consider them as a distinct culture, 
department of our nature. Their improvement becomes a 
duty, not on the ground of the intrinsic value of the beau- 
tiful, but of its relative value, its adaptedness to satisfy a 
human want and add to human power. Their culture and 
gratification are sometimes thought to be unauthorized, as 
involving an expenditure of time and means that should be 
devoted to better uses ; but it is not difficult -to see that 
they pay their way, blessing their possessor with a richer 
subjective life, and endowing him with greater efficiency 
in his action upon others. It is true that these tastes are 
an expensive part of our nature. They multiply and ex- 
tend our wants. Our chief expenditure, in the way of 
dress, and food, and dwellings, and surround- „ . „ 

' ' o > ■ Its expen- 

ings, is imposed by our higher tastes. It is on siveness. 
this account that provision for human comfort is more 
costly than for that of brutes, and that civilized life in- 
volves greater expenditure than savage life. But man is 
better than a stone, or an oyster, because of his multiplied 
susceptibilities and necessities ; and his true elevation is 
found, not in suppressing or neglecting these wants, but in 
adjusting them to each other and to his conditions, in giv- 

273 



2/4 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



ing prominence to the genuine, and permanent, and enno- 
bling, and in repressing the unreasonable, the factitious, 
and degrading. Those who have labored in the dark 
Elevating places to elevate human character have often 
tendency. found that one of the first steps is to awaken a 
desire for a better external condition, to implant cvr arouse 
some w r ant or sense of the seemly and the decorous in ap- 
parel or in dwelling. To want is the nature of man, and low 
animal wants and passions are repressed and held in check 
by awakening the elevated tastes and desires. Nature will 
break out in some unseemly form, if the proper channels 
for its movements are obstructed. In place of comely out- 
ward adorning and appointments, we shall have tawdry 
display and barbaric splendor. In place of genuine social 
enjoyment and refinement, we shall have gross sensual 
pleasures, and a groveling life. The result warrants the 
expenditure. 

But while aesthetic culture is expensive, it increases the 
productive power of a people in a greater ratio than the 
increases expense. The power of the world lies in the 
power. cultivated nations. They not only supply their 

own increased wants, but have a surplus of energy and 
power to expend in benefiting others. It is the rude and 
uncultured that constitute the needy and dependent of the 
world, even with their diminished wants. There is power 
in men according to their motives for action ; and their 
motives for action are multiplied and elevated in the multi- 
plication and elevation of their wants, and in the conscious 
excellence of their being. Culture brings self-respect, and 
in self-respect there is power. 

There is a somewhat prevalent idea that high culture 
brings weakness, in the sense of inability to endure hard- 
ship ; that the increased sensitiveness to the annoyances 



DUTIES — SELF-CULTURE. 



275 



and inconveniences of life indicates inability to bear up 
against them. The idea is not well founded. The culti- 
vated man has resources within himself which A misappre . 
are not dependent upon mere outward condi- hension - 
tion. He finds relief and refreshment where another finds 
nothing to meet his wants. He has superior strength to 
struggle with difficulty, because he has higher motives in 
the conflict, and a greater stake upon the result. This view 
is abundantly supported by facts. The men who survive 
the hardships of a perilous expedition, like that of Dr. Kane, 
are those whose minds are enriched and characters elevated 
by the higher culture. Even with less stalwart frames, 
they will live to bury their comrades who rejoiced in mere 
physical strength, or to bring them through by their supe- 
rior endurance. Women refined by culture to true deli- 
cacy of feeling and perception stand up and live under the 
self-denials of emigration and of frontier life, while those 
apparently less sensitive and better fitted to endure die. 
They have higher reasons for living. Life is more full and 
rich to them. Young men brought up in the midst of the 
refinements of life, and trained in the schools, endure the 
hardships of the camp and the field, while the rugged, but 
uncultured, are broken down by disease, or die of nostalgia. 
We often pity most those who least need our pity. 

There doubtless is a form or show of culture which brings 
weakness instead of strength. There is an outside refine- 
ment which etherealizes and attenuates the 
body, instead of expanding and ennobling the 
soul, which burdens the person with unreal wants, instead 
* of sustaining him with substantial and permanent resources. 
There seems to be a point where civilization or refinement 
ceases to be an advantage and becomes a burden — a limit 
beyond which the conveniences and comforts of life become 



False refine- 
ment. 



276 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



annoyances ; and yet it will perhaps be found that the fail- 
ure is not in degree, but in kind. True refinement has its 
foundation in the permanent susceptibilities of the soul, and 
consists in a reasonable provision for these. False culture 
consists in generating unreasonable and arbitrary wants, 
and in accepting the burdens which they impose. These 
two are as clearly distinguishable as the dictates of true 
taste and the demands of fashionable life. 

There is, too, a refinement which generates into fastidi- 
ousness — a self-conscious and pretentious delicacy, more 
Fastidious- alive to the offensive than to the pleasing, 
ness. There are those whose culture is more a source 

of annoyance to themselves and to others, than of pleasure, 
and more to be avoided even than rudeness or coarseness. 
The preventive and the remedy for this disease is benevo- 
lence ; a true and genuine sympathy with God and hu- 
manity. 

A true culture is as valuable in our adjustment to others 
as it is satisfactory in internal experience. If not an origi- 
Power in na ^ element of power in personal influence, it is 
culture. at } eas t a regulative force which gives effective- 

ness to personal power. It is like the balance-wheel in 
machinery, which regulates the movement ; or like the oil, 
which reduces the friction. Steam power would be utterly 
useless without a lubricator. So a sense of the proprieties 
of time and place, an appreciation of fitness and unfitness, 
brings all the movements into harmony. It tones down 
the ruggedness of mere intellectual or physical power, and 
gives it wise direction. A delicate and discerning move- 
ment is more efficient than a stronger but rougher force. 
Such an instinct of proprieties, in part original and in part 
acquired, is sometimes called a knowledge of human nat- 
ure ; but it involves no theories, no conscious ideas ; it 



DUTIES — SELF- CULTURE. 



277 



tempers and adjusts theories and ideas to practical and 
effective use. It is in demand in all the relations of life. 
The rough and uncultivated yield to the charm as readily 
as others. 

The influence in society exerted by a lady of true refine- 
ment and delicacy of character, it is difficult to analyze or 
explain. It lies not so much in beauty or ele- The culti _ 
gance of person, in vigor, originality, or brill- vatediady. 
iancy of thought. All these are valuable, and contribute 
to the result. Nor is it merely the power of moral worth. 
This is essential, and without it there is no satisfactory 
result. But add to this a delicate sense of proprieties, a 
quickness of perception, to adjust herself to others, to oc- 
cupy the place that falls to her with dignity and ease, and 
you have a civilizing force not easily estimated. Her power 
will not lie in the new ideas she sets forth, nor in the vig- 
orous enforcement of her views. She may not vote or 
lecture. There is power in the graceful goodness which 
beams from her countenance, in the beauty and harmony 
of her action and her life. Evil will fly before her as dark- 
ness yields to light, and truth and good- will spring up in her 
pathway. 

The general culture of which such a character is the 
product I have called aesthetic culture, using the term, 
possibly, in a wider sense than is commonly 

How attained. 

accepted. Its attainment does not come with 
what are technically termed, in education, the accomplish- 
ments. They may fail to bestow it, and it may be secured 
without them. Proficiency in the fine arts, even to the 
extent of an appreciation of the great masters, is not a 
guaranty of true refinement and genuine culture. All these 
are helpful, but there is a way more sure and simple. He 
who opens his heart to the requirements of benevolence, 



278 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



who comes into sympathy with divine goodness and love, 
walks abroad upon the earth where God's beauty smiles, 
and lifts up his eyes to the heavens in which his glory 
shines, will sooner or later find that beauty and glory re- 
flected in his own spirit. Thus we may attain a culture 
higher than ancient or modern art can give. 

The question how much time and means we are per- 
mitted to devote to the culture and gratification of our 
The atten- aesthetic nature, has never been answered, and 
tion proper. canno t be. Many modifying circumstances 
enter into each particular case, excluding the application 
of any general formula. The claims of benevolence are 
always paramount ; and, in the ever- varying conditions of 
life, we must render a conscientious judgment upon the 
demands of propriety and duty. Station in life, and rela- 
tions to general society, are among the factors which deter- 
mine the result. The man in public and the man in pri- 
vate life have different necessities and different standards. 
What would be propriety for the one would be extrava- 
gance for the other. The mistress and her maid sustain 
different responsibilities, and, in the matter of personal 
adornment, one cannot be the model for the other. 
Life in the city and life in the country, student life and 
life in general society, have each their own requirements, 
and each gives its own solution of the problem of good 
taste and propriety. Some allowance, too, is to be made 
for personal peculiarities in taste. To one, a picture, or an 
instrument of music, is only less necessary than daily bread. 
To another, the absence and the presence of such things 
are alike indifferent. These persons have different wants, 
and are permitted to make reasonable provision for these 
wants. The world is the richer for such personal differ- 
ences. 



D U T 1 E S — SELF-CULTURE. 



279 



Neglect of 
jher wan 



Propriety and duty are also modified by the demand for 
effort in other directions. The world is full of pressing 
want, sometimes at the very door. Purple and other de- 

mands to be 

fine linen and sumptuous tare are pleasant and considered, 
desirable ; but the benevolent and the conscientious cannot 
enjoy them while Lazarus lies at the gate. The wants of 
the country and of the world must always be considered. 
In the presence of great destitution, especially near at hand, 
large expenditures for the indulgence of taste are offensive 
and unwarrantable. 

Attention to the impulses of taste to the neglect of 
h'gher personal wants, is equally unworthy. A character 
formed under exclusive or excessive attention 
to the niceties and refinements of life is sure hlgl 
to be feeble and shallow. It is thus that dandies and fine 
ladies are produced, and the dilettanti of literature and art, 
not the soulful men and women, whose personal presence 
is a power and a blessing. To buy a coat when you need 
a dictionary, to travel for culture when you need to work 
or study for discipline and strength, to patronize the mil- 
liner and neglect the instructor, are mistakes of this sort. 
Taste and art furnish the adornments of life, not the grand 
material of life. 

A clear discrimination is to be made between the require- 
ments of good taste and the demands of fashionable life. 
A moderate outlay would meet the real natural 
want, while the arbitrary demands of fashion 
and ostentatious display are a bottomless abyss, swallowing 
all resources, and yielding only emptiness. The attempt 
to meet such demands is utterly vain, and the burden which 
they impose is too grievous to be borne. In this direction 
sad mistakes are made. Those who, with moderate means, 
could meet their own simple and reasonable wants, and 



A discrimi- 
nation. 



28o 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



have a surplus for works of charity and beneficence, with 
enlarged resources, falling into the tide of fashionable life, 
find their wants multiplying more rapidly than their means, 
and charities give place to indulgences. There is a proper 
ratio, variable, not constant, between expenditures for be- 
neficence and for the refinements of life ; and those who 
find the former yielding to the latter need to readjust their 
plans. 

Our physical powers are given us to improve and to use, 
and the general duty of self-culture extends to these. This 
physical cui- duty has a twofold aspect. The body is the 
ture a duty. instrument and organ of the mind, and our 
intellectual and spiritual activities and movements are de- 
pendent upon the conditions of the body. A sound mind 
comes w T ith a sound body. Every disturbance of the physi- 
cal condition produces a reaction upon our highest and 
noblest powers. Duty to the soul involves duty to the 
body. Again, our physical powers are among the faculties 
which we are to employ in the service of God and man. 
To neglect, or abuse, or pervert them, is to fail in the trust 
committed to us. 

Duty, in the way of physical culture, implies proper at- 
tention to health. Health is the condition of effective 
... action in all the work of life; and any course 

Attention ' J 

to health. which undermines the health, or fails to supply 
its conditions, is wrong, and, if unnecessarily pursued, is a 
sin. Excessive exertion of body or of mind, neglect of 
bodily exercise and relaxation, harmful indulgence of appe- 
tite, are among the ordinary forms of transgression. It is 
rare, in experience, that due thoughtfulness comes until 
the evils of neglect and abuse are incurred. 

The acquisition of manual accomplishments and skill is 
among the duties connected with the body. It was a wise 



D U T I ES — SELF -CULTURE. 



28l 



provision of the ancients, that every man, whatever his con- 
dition or calling in life, should acquire skill in some handi- 
craft. This wholesome practice has fallen into Manual skin 
disuse. Yet utter inability to use, for the desirable - 
ever-present wants of life, so cunning an instrument as the 
hand, which God has given to every man, is a misfortune 
and a wrong. It gives, even to the best, an appearance of 
dependence and inefficiency, which is unworthy of them. 
The hours of leisure and relaxation, which belong to the 
busiest life, are adequate to such attainments. 

Proper attention to form, and bearing, and manners be- 
longs to the duty of physical culture. Each man should 
endeavor to get full possession of his own per- Personal 
son, and be at home with himself — not seem manners, 
an intruder in the body given him to inhabit. These per- 
sonal accomplishments are pleasing in themselves, and add 
to the influence which it is every one's prerogative and 
duty to exert. 

The formation and maintenance of such personal habits 
as render one agreeable as an associate in the family, and 
in general society, is an obvious duty. No 
one has the right to render himself offensive 
and loathsome by habits which mar the countenance, or 
pollute the breath, or detract from the dignity and excel- 
lence of his physical nature. Nor has one a right to sub- 
ject himself to the slavery of unworthy habits, in eating or 
drinking, or in the use of vile narcotics, which seem to be 
the evil genius of fallen human nature. From all such un- 
clean spirits it is the privilege and duty of God's rational 
creatures to be free. 

In all efforts at physical culture it should be borne in 
mind that the soul is predominant and the body subor- 
dinate. The highest condition of the man is that in which 



282 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



the soul acts with greatest freedom and vigor. This is, 
in fact, the highest corporeal condition as well ; or rather 
The soul pre- lt ' 1S tne condition of greatest physical effi- 
dommant. ciency and endurance. It is not established 
that the fullest muscular development, or the most perfect 
exhibition of the animal man, is most favorable to efficiency 
or power. It is by no means clear that muscle is not 
sometimes cultivated at the expense of brain, and animal 
strength at the sacrifice of nervous energy and power. It 
is at least questionable whether he who makes a gymnast 
of himself is not sacrificing the higher to the lower nature, 
and whether, in the end, he is not the loser, even in the 
domain of physical power and achievement. This is a 
question for physiologists, but it is one which cannot fail 
to interest every friend of humanity. 

The growing admiration in our land for exploits of mere 
physical strength and prowess, possessing the popular mind, 
Retrograde an< ^ even invading our schools of learning, 
tendency. looks like a retrograde movement in civiliza- 
tion rather than an advance. It is, perhaps, but a needful 
reaction from the general neglect of physical culture which 
has prevailed ; but it cannot be necessary at this day to 
repeat the experiment of Sparta. 

It is a grave mistake, too, in the question of physical 
culture, to overlook the predominance of the moral element 
™ „ . in human nature. He who studies man in his 

1 he moral 

predominant. ca p ac ities and wants as he would study a mere 
animal, can never trust his conclusions. Man is a complex 
being, and must be contemplated in the completeness of 
his nature. The effect of moral motives upon human power 
and endurance must not be overlooked. Men live and 
work sometimes because they have good reasons for it, and 
not because there is any apparent basis in their physical 



DUTIES — SELF-CULTURE. 



283 



condition for so doing. If the facts were gathered in refer- 
ence to those who have been the benefactors of the race in 
the fields of literature, and of moral progress generally, it 
would probably be found that the vast majority of them 
have wrought under a constant struggle with some physical 
infirmity. Pain has often proved the necessary stimulus 
to exertion. The nervous restlessness which comes with 
suffering expends itself upon enterprises which bless man- 
kind, and the interest felt in the enterprise reacts upon the 
sufferer, to lift him above his infirmity, and give him new 
energy and a longer lease of life. It is no rare thing that 
the feeble outwork and outlive the strong. All this does 
not prove that health is not a good to be sought and pre- 
served. It is one of the compensations by which divine 
Wisdom balances the advantages and disadvantages of life. 
Those deprived of full physical vigor may still labor with 
good courage and hope. 

These hints may serve some purpose, in suggesting the 
different forms in which the great duty of self-improvement 
may be pursued. It is a duty that ends only with life, 
perhaps not then ; and when all that is possible has been 
accomplished, there will still remain sufficient of infirmity 
and defect to save from self- exaltation, and to test the 
forbearance of friends. 



CHAPTER X. 



DUTIES — USEFULNESS. 

THE duty of usefulness may seem somewhat compre- 
hensive or vague, but it expresses the obligation resting 
its nature upon every one to hold himself, his faculties, 

and obliga- . - . 

toriness. and resources at the service 01 being, subject 
to the claims of God and of man. This is the duty in its 
generic form, expressing what should be the aim and pur- 
pose of every one, to make his life subserve some good 
end ; to contribute, according to his ability, to the aggre- 
gate of general well-being. A life thus devoted stands 
opposed to a life of self-indulgence — a nursing of one's 
own ease, or comfort, or pleasure. It is not in any sense 
opposed to one's highest good, or to a true regard for his 
own well-being. The duty rests on the double basis of 
good to others and good to ourselves ; what we can do and 
what we shall receive. A life of usefulness is the only 
satisfactory life, and this of itself would be a sufficient 
reason for its pursuit. It is the practical outworking of 
benevolence, which is the vital principle of all duty. The 
benevolent man necessarily inquires, How much good can 
I do? — not, How little may I do, and still secure the 
reputation and rewards of a virtuous life? 

There is in the human constitution an impulse to useful- 
ness, as to every other duty ; and much human effort must 
be attributed to this generous impulse. It exists in differ- 
ent degrees in different natures. One person is naturally 

284 



D V T 1 E S — u s E E U LN ESS. 



285 



self-seeking, a receiver rather than a giver; looking for 
benefits rather than bestowing them, accounting it a hard- 
ship to have to contribute to another's welfare. The natural 
Another is naturally self-forgetful, looking for im P ulse - 
opportunities of usefulness to others, finding a pleasure in 
meeting their wants. The obligations of benevolence rest 
upon these alike ; operating, in the first case, to suppress 
the selfish impulse, and form the life and character to 
generous action ; in the second, to sustain the generous 
impulse with a permanent principle, and render genuine the 
goodness which was only specious. But the duty of use- 
fulness must be made a study. It is not enough to main- 
tain a benevolent heart, and assume that the way of duty 
will open of its own accord, and the life take care of itself. 
"Wisdom is profitable to direct." The purpose of useful- 
ness must enter into all plans and govern the life. 

The choice of an occupation, a life-calling, is to be de- 
termined by its relation to our usefulness. Industry, 
employment, is a duty, even when it is not a An occupa . 
necessity. Indeed, it may be said to be always tlon rec i uired - 
a necessity — a necessity for self-satisfaction and comfort, if 
not as a means of support. But aside from this, no one 
can have a right to leave his energies unemployed while 
there is work to be done which would contribute to hu- 
man welfare. Every one needs an occupation, one that 
commends itself to his judgment as worthy of him. 

In the first place, it must not be harmful — a business 
that panders to the vices of men, and derives its profits 
from their weaknesses. The man is a nuisance Not to be 
in society whose business contributes to human harmful, 
degradation. In the advance of intelligence and public 
virtue, he will be accounted and treated as a felon. At 
present, a gross offender is restrained by the necessity of 



286 MORAL SCIENCE. 

procuring" a license from the State, or is restricted in his 
mischief by statutes. What relation has the production or 
sale of rum or tobacco to the proper work of life ? 

In the next place, the occupation must not be useless. 
No business can be approved which does not contribute to 
human welfare. It is not enough that it brings 

Not useless. 

satisfactory returns, and that these may be 
used in the work of usefulness. There is no propriety in 
accepting any return for a work which the world does not 
need. It is of the nature of fraud to take pay for such 
work. It is an unworthy occupation to fasten one's self 
upon the business of the country, with the purpose to con- 
tribute nothing to its movements, but only to divert some- 
thing to one's own advantage. Such a man is in a false 
position, and can give no satisfactory reason for occupying 
a place in the world, and receiving a support. What good 
account can he give of himself whose business is speculation 
in Western lands, or in Wall Street stocks? 

The pecuniary return which an occupation may yield is 
not the chief point of inquiry. The work is of more conse- 
The work quence than the pay. The pecuniary return 

more than 111 = 1 r 

the pay. may be regarded as the necessary means 01 

living and working, not as the prime reason for working. 
The pay can sometimes be dispensed with, the work can- 
not. This consideration applies not merely to. those pur- 
suits which are immediately beneficent in their aim, as the 
work of the preacher, the physician, the teacher, but to all 
occupations which contribute to the common good. The 
man is unworthy of his calling who finds his chief satisfac- 
tion in the wages he receives, and who hastens to shuffle 
off his work the moment he can live without it. 

Any positively useful occupation is a worthy one ; but 
those must be considered as most satisfactory which bear 



DUTIES — USEFULNESS. 287 

most directly and clearly upon human welfare ; and the 
higher the wants which it meets, the higher the calling. 
But there must be a correspondence between Adapted to 
the faculties and qualifications devoted to any powers, 
pursuit and the work to be done. It is unseemly to waste 
fine abilities and high education upon the work of a porter 
or a boot-black, although these are useful and proper pur- 
suits. Socrates once said : " The man is idle who can 
undertake anything better than what he is now doing." 
There is a vast amount of idleness of this sort ; and yet 
it is better to accept the humbler occupation, than to go 
staggering under burdens too heavy for us, or to struggle 
for positions for which we are not qualified. It requires 
some fortitude and grace to subside from a public to a pri- 
vate position ; and he who can do it when the occasion 
comes is worthy of all honor. 

It is better that there should remain some surplus of 
strength after the ordinary duties of the calling are dis- 
charged. Every man needs a business that he Not exhaust - 

1 1-n 11 ing the en- 

Can manage, and not one that will overwhelm ergies. 

him. Some men seem to be absolutely swallowed by their 
pursuits. You never see the man — only the merchant, the 
schoolmaster, the mechanic. The man is more important 
than his calling, and should be able to keep his head above 
the tide of business. He should reserve some strength for 
the common offices of humanity, for the family, the neigh- 
borhood, and for general society. 

We are perhaps more ready to look too high, than too 
low, for an employment. A longing for what seems a 
more worthy occupation is no rare thing in 

. . Not above us. 

human experience ; and it oftener arises from 
a failure to appreciate the work in hand, than from a con- 
sciousness of powers unemployed. One who does heartily 



2cSS 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



what he finds to do will not often suffer for want of a wider 
sphere of action. The way to get better work to do, is to 
do well that we have. " To him that hath, shall be given," 
is the principle upon which work is assigned by God and 
by men. There are few that fail in life for want of favor- 
able openings ; many because they do not earnestly enter 
into the work before them. 

The mistake is sometimes made of confounding publicity 
or notoriety with usefulness. A work appears useful ac- 
Notoriety cording to the display it makes or the degree 
not usefulness. Q £ attent i on i t attracts; hence a disposition to 
undervalue the more quiet pursuits, where the great work 
of life is done, and seek the more showy. It should be 
borne in mind that a work is to be estimated by its depth, 
as well as by its breadth ; and that the field which seems a 
narrow one may yield richer results by reason of its greater 
depth of culture. The work that is so widespread is nec- 
essarily superficial. 

All can become heroic ; but only a few can be publicly 
recognized as heroes, or become historical. We can all do 
brave deeds, and if the tide of history turns in our direc- 
tion we can launch our bark upon it ; but it is not in the 
power, even of the strongest, to make history, or to com- 
pel in it a place for themselves. 

" Lives of great men all remind us 
We can make our lives sublime;" 

but they do not teach us that we can attract the attention 
of the world to the -sublimity of our lives. That is the 
dream of a spirit of self- exaltation, not the lesson of history. 

Wealth, as well as personal influence and power, is to be 
regarded as a means of usefulness, to be employed con- 
scientiously and benevolently. It matters not how that 



DUTIES — 



USEFULNESS. 



wealth has been acquired, whether by inheritance, or by 
one's own labor and economy ; the same responsibility at- 
taches to the possessor to use it wisely for the wealth a 
common good. The money is his, not merely means, 
to minister to his enjoyment, not to be consumed upon his 
lusts, but as a sacred trust to be employed according to his 
highest convictions of duty. The responsibility is a grave 
one ; but it always comes with possession. It is often 
found easier to acquire wealth than to use it wisely. The 
struggle for the acquisition not rarely perverts the charac- 
ter and unfits for the enjoyment and wise use of property. 
The habit of acquiring and hoarding becomes fixed, and 
the idea of using or dispensing cannot be received. "A 
penny saved is worth tw T o earned;" but a penny well ex- 
pended is better than either. Money is good for nothing 
else. Careful gathering and hoarding are virtues only 
when directed to a worthy end. It is the weakness of men 
to cling to their wealth until death, and then purchase the 
merit of a beneficent life by bequests to worthy objects. 
This is better than to squander it, or to leave it as a bur- 
den or a curse to children ; but it is better still to devote 
it to its proper uses while the owner lives to control its 
distribution and its use. Children are injured, not merely 
by receiving the property as an inheritance ; they are often 
ruined by the expectation of receiving. Let it be wisely 
dispensed as it accumulates, and thus avoid both dangers. 
Such a course requires benevolence, and wisdom, and de- 
cision of character. The owner of property has the pre- 
rogative of determining to what good uses to apply it ; this 
privilege or duty comes with ownership. 

Special obligation devolves upon those who have made 
large accumulations of wealth. Grant that the acquisition 
has been honestly made, without any failure in integrity ; 



290 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



it is still true that they have received more than a fair re- 
turn for the labor and skill bestowed. In the distribution of 
wealth brings ^ e profits of labor and capital, accomplished 
special duty. hy the roU gh adjustments of business, they 
have received more than their just proportion. No redis- 
tribution is called for, or is possible. The results of business 
honorably conducted determine the property- right. But 
a thoughtful and conscientious man will not fail to consider 
that what he has above an average return for the labor be- 
stowed has come by imperfect distribution. His dividends 
have been unreasonably large, and others have lost what he 
has gained. He cannot find the exact sufferers and make 
up their loss ; but he can regard his wealth as belonging, 
in a very proper sense, to the community, and use it to 
promote the public interests. In addition to the ordinary 
claims of benevolence, this obligation rests upon him as a 
matter of justice. 

Money may often be devoted to works of immediate 
charity. This use is the most obvious, and would seem to 
works of involve least question. But it is not uncommon 
chanty. ^at mistakes are made in such a distribution, 
especially when the donor undertakes to strike out for him- 
self some new line of beneficence. The work requires the 
highest discernment — a wisdom which comes only from 
experience ; and the one who undertakes it without expe- 
rience will often be disappointed in the result. But the 
difficulty of the work will not excuse from the duty. 

Another channel for the distribution of wealth is in the 
utilitarian enterprises of manufactures, or commerce, or 
Useful public improvements, which furnish employ- 

enterpnses. me nt to many, and multiply and distribute the 
comforts of life. It is true that men generally invest in 
such enterprises purely as a business transaction ; but a 



DUTIES — U SEFU LNESS. 



higher view is possible, and doubtless often cherished — the 
aim to use the money wisely in contributing to human wel- 
fare. This aim is sometimes shown in the disposition to 
distribute, as far as possible, the profits of the investment 
among the operatives whose labor has won them, either 
in increased wages, improved dwellings, or in multiplied 
advantages of schools and churches. 

The work of the money-lender is also legitimate, and 
may be made beneficent. It brings together capital and 
capacity, and opens doors of useful occupation Money- 
to those to whom they would otherwise be lending, 
closed. One who resists the temptation to take advantage 
of the necessities of men, and extends a helping hand to 
industry and to merit, may serve God and his generation 
as a money-lender. 

We may use our money for present comfort and support, 
and retain it as a reasonable provision for the future, or as 
an outfit for children entering upon life. We Personal 
may expend it in the comforts and refinements uses ' 
of life, in apparel and personal adornment, suitable to our 
condition and relations, in providing a pleasant home, with 
suitable surroundings, a refreshment to the owner and a 
blessing to the community — not because we have a right 
to the money and can use it as we will, but because such 
uses are benevolent and proper. We have no right to ex- 
pend a dollar for ourselves which we have reason to believe 
would do more good bestowed elsewhere. Possession does 
not deliver us from this stern law of duty. 

Social position and personal influence are among the 
resources which must be made to contribute to usefulness. 
This power depends, not chiefly upon wealth, but more 
upon culture and character. In part it may be inherited, 
in part acquired. It belongs not merely to the prominent 



2g2 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



and the favored, but attaches, in some degree, to human 
nature in all conditions, to the old and the young, the 
social in- learned and the unlearned, the rich and the 
fluence. poor. Each in his own circle exerts a force 

which may be used benevolently, or thoughtlessly and 
harmfully ; in the correction of what is wrong in society, 
and the support of what is right, or in spreading and per- 
petuating mischief. 

Social life has claims upon all, and involves responsibili- 
ties from which we cannot be excused. It may seem easier 
to live isolated, to cast off social obligation, be- 

Duty to all. . . 

cause it is so difficult to meet it, or because of 
pernicious customs in society which it is hard to withstand. 
The excuse is not sufficient. Society is a necessity, and 
the conscientious and the good are needed here as else- 
where. The quiet but mighty influence of benevolence 
and fidelity to duty will tell even where worldliness and 
vanity seem to be predominant. 

The difficulty often felt is to meet the mischievous or 
questionable customs which invade social life, and maintain 

a conscientious position without failure or 

The difficulty. ... 

offense. We cannot go far without meeting 
such difficulties, and if we would shun them utterly, " we 
must needs go out of the world." The questions, How far 
may we go in the fashionable entertainments and amuse- 
ments which tend to dissipation ? what may we join in, and 
what must we omit? where is the line between the per- 
mitted and the forbidden ? can never be answered ; and if 
answered to-day, they would return to-morrow. One may 
go forward with a frank and earnest heart, waiting where 
doubt arises until better light shall come, and the difficulties 
and dangers will not be found formidable. Conscientious- 
ness, tempered by gentleness, will rarely give offense, and 



DUTIES — USEFULNESS. 



293 



will often accomplish more in the way of social reform than 
vigorous preaching or denunciation. The work calls for 
courage, and fidelity, and patience, and prayer. 

Young people have their earlier experiences of personal 
responsibility in these social relations. They constitute a 
urominent element in this department of social Responsibil- 

11 1 1 • 1 • • • ity of the 

life, and have much to do m determining its young, 
form and character. They need all the principle and good 
sense that they can command, to avoid the evil and to 
follow the good. They determine for themselves whether 
their associations shall be refining, and elevating, and re- 
freshing, or coarse, and low, and dissipating. It is vain to 
look for any sufficient light in definite and formal rules. 
Many particular questions may be answered, but there will 
often be occasion to fall back upon the instinct of a seri- 
ous and earnest and conscientious heart. This will rarely 
mislead. 

In all efforts at usefulness, it is to be borne in mind that 
the great want of mankind is a knowledge of God, and re- 
gard for his will. This want is the source of The great 
almost all the dissatisfaction and misery with want, 
which the world abounds ; and this want supplied, the work 
that remains is simple, and easily accomplished. Those 
who would live lives of usefulness need to carry with them 
this conviction, inspiring their hearts and shaping their 
actions ; and however their hands may be employed, their 
efforts shall yield a rich result of beneficent and saving 
power. The highest good that one can bestow upon an- 
other is to make the facts of God's being and character 
more real to his thoughts ; and this is the work of the 
earnest soul in every sphere of life, and in every occupation, 



CHAPTER XI. 



DUTIES — FIDELITY. 

A FEW special duties are still to be considered, and, 
without attaching any significance to the order, we will 
Meaning of ta ^e ^ rst tne duty °f fidelity. This term is 
the term. commonly used in the general sense of faith- 
fulness in meeting all obligation. In this chapter it will be 
used in the limited sense of faithfulness in the fulfillment of 
contracts and promises. This duty is sometimes confounded 
with veracity, but there is an obvious distinction between 
them. Veracity refers to the attitude of mind in making 
a statement ; fidelity, to the conduct which follows in the 
case of promises and contracts. 

There are at least two parties to a contract. These may 
share alike in the obligations and advantages, or the obli- 
gation may be chiefly on one side and the ad- 
Two parties. 

vantage on the other. In the latter case the 
engagement is ordinarily called a promise. The two trans- 
actions differ in form, not in essential nature, and the same 
principles apply to both. 

The binding force of a contract lies in the fact that in- 
terests are involved in the agreement, and grow out of it. 

An agreement in reference to a matter utterly 

Binding force. . . ,. , 

indifferent to both parties has no binding force ; 
or, if any at all, it must lie in the fact that the mere fulfill- 
ment of the engagement becomes an interest, as a matter 
of morality and duty. That no such obligation arises is 

294 



DUTIES — FIDELITY. 



295 



manifest from the fact that a contract may be dissolved by 
mutual consent when the interest of neither party requires 
its fulfillment. No inquiry or thought arises in reference 
to the interests of morality in the case. If, in any case, 
the fulfillment of a promise becomes detrimental to the one 
to whom it is made, the obligation to fulfill ceases. No 
solemnity of form can create obligation where no interest 
attaches. Hence, a threat differs in its very nature from 
a promise, and the obligation to fulfill it rests a threat dif- 

i-rr i- • it 71 1 t i fers from a 

on a different condition. When the Lord promise, 
sent Jonah to announce the destruction of Nineveh, both 
Jonah and the Ninevites felt that the threat might be 
revoked, and so it was. If it Jiad been a promise, the 
announcement of some good, their views would have been 
different. A child promises to strike, another. Fidelity 
does not require him to give the blow. He promises 
some favor; he is not at liberty, in the exercise of his 
own judgment, to withhold that favor. If Judgment of 

promiser not 

he ascertains, beyond question, that what he enough, 
thought a favor is no favor, no obligation attaches. 
But, in general, the promiser is not at liberty to be gov- 
erned by his own judgment in the case. He cannot, in 
general, know what relation the promise may sustain to the 
good of the promisee — what interests may have gathered 
about the engagement. Hence, the dissolution of a prom- 
ise, or a contract, requires mutual consent, in the full and 
proper sense of the word consent. There are cases in which 
the community becomes a party in the interest. Then the 
agreement cannot be dissolved by the mere consent of the 
original parties. This is the fact in marriage, which, there- 
fore, cannot be regarded as a simple contract, but becomes 
an institution. 

A promise is binding in the sense in which it was under- 



296 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



stood at the time it was made ; that is, in the sense in w hich 
the promiser intended the promisee should understand it. 
in what sense tne case °f disagreement, the laws of lan- 
bmding. guage and the history of the transaction must 

determine the intent. A contract is binding in the same 
sense, and under the same conditions. But there are cases 
in which it is not right for one party to hold the other to 
the obligations of his contract or promise. 

If the contract be unjust or unfair to one of the parties, 
whether the unfairness was apprehended or not, the party 
Swearino-to wronged is bound by the contract, but the other 
one's hurt. party cannot rightfully enforce it. It would 
be taking advantage of the ignorance or weakness of an- 
other. The Scripture approves " the man who swears to 
his own hurt, and changes not," but it would not approve 
the man who holds him to his hurtful swearing. In morals 
it is not sufficient to determine that a contract is binding. 
That is the mere legality of the case. The man who has 
the advantage in the transaction must bring the case to the 
test of benevolence before he accepts the fulfillment. 

There are circumstances which render a contract or prom- 
ise null, in the nature of the case. When the performance 
is or becomes impossible, the agreement is 

When null. . .... 

void. If ability returns, the obligation may 
revive. When the fulfillment brings injury to others, its 
fulfillment becomes wrong. It is immaterial whether the 
injury was apprehended or not in the making of the con- 
tract ; the fulfillment is wrong in both cases. The popular 
maxim, that a bad promise is better broken than kept, 
needs qualification or explanation. There are promises, 
wicked in the making, which it is wrong not to fulfill ; as 
when one swears to his own hurt. It is wrong to swear 
to one's own hurt, but the promise must be fulfilled. 



DUTIES — FIDELITY. 297 

When one swears to do injury to others, the promise is 
utterly null. It is a sin to make or receive such a prom- 
ise, and a greater sin to fulfill or to exact it. If injury to 
others is incidental to the promise, and not the express 
matter of it, the promise may be binding to the extent that 
some consideration is due to the promisee in the case, but 
the third party must not suffer by the fulfillment of the 
promise. 

When a promise or contract is conditional and the con- 
ditions are not fulfilled, the promise becomes void. Care- 
ful discrimination must be made between f, , 

Conditional 

essential and non-essential conditions. A con- contracts, 
dition can be regarded as essential only when it compares 
somewhat in importance with the subject-matter of the 
agreement. The letter, too, must be distinguished from 
the spirit, both in the conditions and in the agreement. 
It is no rare thing to " keep the word of promise to the 
ear, and break it to the hope." 

A contract or promise may be express or implied ; that 
is, it may be framed into words, oral or written, or it may 
be involved in some voluntarily assumed rela- Express or 
tion or position, by the nature of the case, or im p!ied. 
by the customs of society. One who enters a hotel and 
accepts entertainment, or takes passage on a steamer or a 
car, in the act itself, without any words, engages to pay the 
usual charges. The party tendering the service agrees to 
be satisfied with the usual payment ; and it is a breach of 
fidelity for either party to fail to meet this understanding. 
One who enters a family or a school engages, in the act 
itself, to abide by its established order. It is by no means 
necessary that he should subscribe a pledge to that effect ; 
the obligation is the same in either case. If he has failed 
in duty, the written pledge may quicken his sense of obli- 



298 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



gation, but it does not create the obligation. A profes- 
sional man tendering his services to the community engages 
to bring to the work the education and skill implied in the 
profession, and to bestow upon it the required time and 
attention. A merchant offering his goods to the commu- 
nity engages to sell at a reasonable profit, or at market 
prices ; and he who orders the goods without inquiry 
comes under obligation to pay only the reasonable price. 
The acceptance of any post of responsibility where any 
interest of life or property is at stake involves an implied 
pledge of fidelity to those interests. 

It is in the nature of an oath to impress obligation rather 
than to create it. A simple promise gives rise to the obli- 
Effect of gation ; the oath adds the sanctions of religion 
the oath. and the fear of God to impress the obligation 
upon the heart. An oath cannot be binding when, under 
the same circumstances, a simple promise would not bind ; 
and whenever the mere promise would be annulled, the 
oath fails likewise. Hence the oath can never bind to any 
wicked act, nor to any concealment which is detrimental to 
society, nor to any act which is in itself indifferent, and to 
which a mere promise would impart no significance. 

As a practical illustration of the duties of fidelity, and 
because the subject is one of special importance to the 
. younp\ a few remarks are added upon the del- 

Marnage en- 7 fc>> r 

gagements. - cate matter of marriage engagements. These 
are of the nature of simple contracts, because society is not 
a party to the transaction. An engagement to marry is 
not, like marriage, an institution of society ; it is wholly a 
matter of personal concern. 

A contract or engagement of marriage is, of course, in- 
volved in any express agreement to that effect. There are 
certain conditions or limitations which, in the nature of the 



DUTIES — FIDELITY. 299 

case, attach to it. No definite time may be mentioned ; 
the engagement carries with it a reasonable limit in this re- 
spect. The continued virtue and respectability Implie d CO n- 
of the parties is a condition of their claim to dltlons - 
the fulfillment of the contract. Slight aberrations, not 
seriously affecting the character or reputation, do not set 
aside the claim. Disclosures, made subsequent to the 
engagement, of serious constitutional infirmity, like a ten- 
dency to insanity, would release from obligation. Lighter 
infirmities could not annul it. The same principle must 
apply to serious faults of temper revealed subsequently to 
the engagement. Conditions like these, whether expressed 
or not, apply to all engagements. 

Arbitrary conditions are sometimes attached, which, in 
the nature of the case, cannot hold. The continuance of 
interest and affection cannot be made a condi- , ... 

Impossible 

tion, because the very point of the obligation is conditions, 
to maintain that interest and affection. The engagement 
is not simply to marry, but to bring to the marriage that 
state of affection which makes the marriage desirable. 
That one shall not fall in with another party who seems 
more desirable cannot be made a condition. The engage- 
ment precludes that freedom of fancy which the condition 
implies. A party to such a contract has failed in duty 
when he indulges this freedom of fancy. A marriage 
engagement, like marriage itself, is not based on a fickle 
and fleeting emotion, but involves a moral A moral 
election, a decision of the will as substantial election, 
and permanent as the character itself. The affections 
wait on this moral choice, and are controlled by it. The 
faithful lover can walk among the beautiful and desirable 
of the world without danger to his fidelity. Without such 
a power of moral choice overruling and directing the emo- 



300 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



tions, marriage itself could never be safe. The condi- 
tion, then, of permanency of interest is ruled out of the 
marriage engagement. 

Marriage engagements are not formed for the sake of 
acquaintance, in the light of which the propriety of mar- 
objectofen- ri a g e is* to be determined. The engagement 
garment. presupposes that acquaintance, and the settle- 
ment of the question of the propriety of marriage. The 
place for consideration is antecedent to the engagement. 
The frequent failure of young people is to move upon the 
spur of some ephemeral feeling or fancy which dazzles for 
the hour, and leaves only darkness in the end. It is the 
truer wisdom to test the fancy by time and acquaintance 
and the sober light of the judgment, in a comparison of 
tastes and tendencies and aims; to give the fancy the trial 
of a winter as well as a summer, of absence as well as pres- 
ence, to test its vitality. An engagement thus consider- 
ately made has in it the natural elements of permanence, 
and the proper aim and purpose of it is to provide for that 
mutual adjustment of thought, and feeling, and plan, and 
purpose, and life, which gives success to marriage. Mar- 
riage without some such previous opportunity is liable to 
involve a want of adjustment which may peril the result. 

A marriage engagement, being a simple* contract, may 
be dissolved by mutual consent. If the parties themselves 
Mutual become satisfied that it is not for their interest 

consent. tQ consumma t e the marriage, they are at lib- 
erty to decline it. But this must be determined by the 
free decision of both parties. It is not enough that one 
party reaches this decision, and asks the other for a release. 
Of course a release will be granted ; but the party released 
cannot indulge the satisfaction of a dissolution by mutual 
agreement. To ask to be released is only a specious form 



DUTIES — FIDELITY 



301 



of breaking the engagement. The binding force of an 
engagement increases with the lapse of time. The interests 
which cluster about it, in settled affection, and Effectoftime 
life arrangements and hopes, are constantly and P ubhcit y- 
increasing ; and on such interests the obligations of fidelity 
are based. The element of publicity adds something to its 
force, involving, to a greater or less extent, the reputation 
of the parties. 

Like many other contracts, a marriage engagement may 
be implied as well as expressed. In general, any course of 
conduct pursued by the parties, which, in the i mp H e d en- 
common judgment of society, indicates the gagements. 
intention of marriage, involves, in a measure, the obligation 
of an engagement. Persistent and exclusive attentions 
offered on one part and accepted on the other, without any 
definite or formal proposal, may bring the parties under 
obligation. Either party would have the right to complain 
if a subsequent consummation is declined by the other. 
Young women must be allowed a wider latitude in this 
respect, because they receive proposals, and do not make 
them. But they must have the moral courage and the 
self-respect to decline attentions which they would not seri- 
ously entertain. The force of an engagement lies not 
merely in words, which might express it, but in acts and 
relations voluntarily assumed which ordinarily attend upon 
the engagement. There is, of course, a general association 
in the ordinary relations of society, or for the purposes of 
acquaintance, which has no such significance. 

Again, any course of conduct designed to awaken in 
another the particular personal affection of which mar- 
riage is the expression, implies the obligation i mp ii e dob- 
of an offer of marriage. The only justifiable Ration, 
reason for such an effort is the purpose to go forward if 



302 



MURAL SCIENCE. 



the conquest is made; and a refusal to respond to the 
affection thus awakened is a gross and wanton breach of 
fidelity. 

Any proposed arrangement which, in the natural course 
of things, results in an engagement of the affections, involves 
Grave respon- g" rave responsibility. A particular correspond- 
Eibihties. ence ma i n tained between two persons in mar- 
riageable relations for purposes of personal improvement is 
an arrangement of this character. A very particular friend- 
ship, intended to be of the Platonic cast, between two such 
persons, even though a mutual pledge be taken that it shall 
be a friendship and nothing more, involves such liabilities. 
The parties are not in a condition to maintain an ordinary 
friendship. Unconsciously they impart to it a warmth of 
feeling and imagination which brings it under another ex- 
perience and another name. A pleasant melody of Moore's, 
entitled "A Temple to Friendship," will illustrate the tend- 
encies and the frequent result. Those who place them- 
selves in such relations should understand the case, and be 
prepared to meet the obligations which result. The young- 
are inclined to claim for themselves a more extended liberty 
in such particulars, and to affect a degree of good sense and 
discretion which insures them against danger. A wider 
observation or experience will diminish their confidence. 
These suggestions indicate the ethics of the subject. As 
a prudential maxim, it is safe to assume that no more is 
intended than is expressed in words, and to withhold the 
affection that is not distinctly asked for. 



CHAPTER XII. 



DUTIES — VERACITY. 

VERACITY, as a virtue, is the benevolent conforming of 
our communications with men to the truth. Benevolence 
in general requires this conformity. It is due virtuous 
to God, as demanded by respect for his char- veracity, 
acter and attributes. It is also an essential condition of 
the existence of society. Every human being needs reli- 
able information from others ; his need constitutes a right ; 
and the right on his part imposes duty on others. This 
alone is the basis of the obligation. The truth has no 
sacredness in itself; all its sacredness is derived from the 
interests of moral beings. 

Truthfulness is sometimes discriminated as objective and 
subjective — truthfulness in expression and truthfulness in 
intention. Either may exist without the other. 0bjective and 
We may intend the truth and fail ; or we may sub i ective - 
intend falsehood and state the truth. Subjective truthful- 
ness alone is obligatory. Nor is it enough to intend to 
state the truth. In order to virtuous veracity the intention 
must be grounded in benevolence. Truth-telling from 
malice, or even from a generous impulse, is not virtuous 
veracity. 

The obligation of veracity is enjoined in the third com- 
mand of the decalogue : " Thou shalt not take the name of 
the Lord thy God in vain" — that is, thou shalt not make 
oath to a falsehood. All falsehood is contempt of God — 

303 



304 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



a disregard of his attributes ; and in this precept the sin is 
contemplated in this view. False swearing is the form of 
Enjoined in tne transgression expressed, but all falsehood is 
the decalogue. i mp ii e( j ) a s exhibiting similar contempt of God. 
Its implied utterance is : " How doth God know ; and is 
there knowledge in the Most High?" It is also a sin 
against mankind, a violation of his right to the truth, and 
in this view it is prohibited in the ninth commandment : 
" Thou shalt not bear false # witness against thy neighbor." 

The significance of the oath is in the fact that God is 
invoked as a witness, and the relater is placed under the 
c-„«-fi^o„^» direct recognition of his presence. The im- 

Signincance » r 

of the oath. p r ecation often annexed, " So help me, God," 
is a prayer for God's favor on condition of telling the truth. 
It is sometimes supposed that the superior force of the oath 
lies in the civil penalties annexed to perjury ; but these 
penalties could be provided for without the oath. The 
appeal to God impresses the mind with the guilt of false- 
hood, and the importance of truthfulness as a condition of 
his favor. It adds divine sanctions to human penalty. The 
oath does not originate the obligation of truthfulness ; it 
only intensifies and impresses it. 

The question sometimes arises of the rightfulness of the 
oath. The argument against it is wholly drawn from the 
its right- Saviour's prohibition: "Swear not at all." A 
fulness. careful comparison of the various passages of 

Scripture on the subject will sustain the prevalent idea, 
that the Saviour refers to the light and profane use of the 
name of God without occasion. The oath was enjoined, in 
special cases, under the Mosaic law, and the Apostles seem 
to have employed it at times. The solemn appeal to God 
in courts of justice and on grave occasions is not profanity ; 
ii tends to honor God, and not to cast contempt upon him. 



DUTIES — VERACITY. 



305 



It is one of the comparatively few forms in which our nation 
governmentally recognizes Jehovah. The use of the oath 
on every trivial occasion, as in certifying to a business 
account or a tax return, seems undesirable and unwar- 
ranted. The careless administration of the oath, depriving 
it of all impressiveness and solemnity, which prevails in our 
courts and legislative bodies, and even in the senate of the 
nation, can scarcely be distinguished from profanity. If it 
cannot be rescued from such abuse, it were better that it 
should be abolished. 

The sin of profaning the name of God is of the same 
nature with falsehood, regarded as contempt of God ; hence, 
the third commandment is properly applied Profanity 
against it, although this is probably not its lts nature - 
primary reference. The offense is a most gross and wanton 
one, and the existence and prevalence of it would seem in- 
credible but for the multiplied and painful facts around us. 
The only apparent motive for the loathsome habit is in the 
propensity to strengthen and intensify an utterance. It is 
not to be assumed that those who indulge the habit intend 
to express contempt of God ; but proper respect for him 
would make such utterances seem shocking. Is it not 
possible that the habit of intensifying speech with strong 
words and frequent exclamations, indulged even by worthy 
people, ministers to the prevalent passion which, in the 
rough and reckless, results in profanity ? 

The obligation of veracity may be violated by any 
method by which a false impression may be communicated 
— by a positively false statement, by an exag- violations 
geration, by a partial statement, by an into- of veracity, 
nation, by a gesture, or even by silence. Hence the explicit 
requirement of the oath, " to tell the truth, the whole truth, 
and nothing but the truth," The forms of violation most 



3o6 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



frequent, and to which those who have falsehood in their 
hearts constantly resort, involve the use of words and ex- 
pressions of double or unsettled meaning, giving the hearer 
a false impression, while the falsehood cannot be directly 
fastened upon the words. This method has the advantage 
of allowing the deceiver to comfort himself in the delusion 
that he has not told an untruth. There are comparatively 
few that have the hardihood to utter a falsehood distinctly 
expressed in words. Such an utterance indicates great 
boldness or great awkwardness. The offense is in the aim 
to deceive ; the manner is immaterial. 

The question as to the limits of the obligation of veracity 
requires a few words. Are its claims absolute, to the ex- 
Limits of the ten ^ tnat deception is never allowable under 
obligation. an ^ r c i rcum stances or for any reasons? The 
common judgment of mankind has always answered this 
question in the negative. It is not difficult to state a case 
in which deception would be justified, even by the most 
rigid moralist, unless a favorite theory were at stake. 
According to the views heretofore presented, the general 
answer to the question must be, that the limits of the obli- 
gation must be found in the requirements of benevolence. 
The only absolute obligation is that of benevolence itself ; 
all other duties, veracity included, derive their force from 
this obligation. If, under any circumstances, proper regard 
to highest good would admit of deception, then the claims 
of veracity cease. That such cases arise there is scarce 
room for doubt. The false movements of an army to de- 
ceive an enemy, the devices of a fugitive from captivity to 
mislead the pursuer, are examples of this kind, never called 
in question. But to state a principle which shall clearly 
draw the line between the objective right and the wrong, 
is probably impossible. In this respect veracity is like 



DUTIES — VERACITY. 



307 



every other duty. To say that veracity is obligatory, 
when the person asking has a right to know the truth, is 
to utter a truism. The very point of the inquiry is, When 
does that right exist? To say that the obligation exists 
when there is need of the truth, is more to the point ; but 
if we judge of the need by a reference to the person im- 
mediately concerned, and to the case in hand, we fail to 
embrace all interests. The principle of veracity is one of 
grave importance, and meets a permanent want of moral 
beings. To maintain this principle, truth must be told and 
deception excluded, even when, in the particular case, the 
communication serves no interest, and deception would 
work no immediate harm. Absolute truthfulness in com- 
munication is the grand practical rule. The The rule and 
exceptions will be rare, and indicated more or exception- 
less clearly to the practical judgment by attending circum- 
stances. In general it will appear in these exceptions that 
they involve no appeal to confidence — that something in 
the circumstances of the case precludes the idea that the 
communication is to be accepted according to its purport, 
or leaves the matter wholly in doubt. An enemy, in war, 
expects to be deceived. Even the dispatches of the op- 
posing general may be intended for this purpose. But 
when a flag of truce approaches, the presumption is en- 
tirely different. Sincerity in the communication is tendered 
and expected, and the obligation holds, even to an outlaw. 
The kidnapper expects to be deceived by the movements 
of the fugitive. He has no claim to the knowledge he 
desires, on the ground of any need on his part ; and the 
general principle of veracity is not at stake. Confidence 
between man and man is not shaken by the deception. 
Thus, each particular exception must carry with it its own 
vindication. 



3 o8 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



The view is sometimes maintained that there is a radical 
difference between words and gestures ; that deception by 
words and gestures is often allowable, by words never, 
gestures. jf t } lere k e ari y suc j 1 diff ere nce between these 
two means of communication, it must lie in the fact that 
words involve an appeal to confidence, in a sense that gest- 
ures do not. There may be some foundation for this 
view ; but it is often true that a gesture is just as signifi- 
cant as a word, and carries with it all the obligation. There 
are cases, too, where words have no such force, and may 
be used in a justifiable deception. The' relations of the 
parties and of the interests involved must determine the 
case. 

Upon this principle, that confidence is not appealed to 
in the case, the present modes of conducting litigations in 
Legal tne cour ts must be vindicated, if at all. The 

practice. lawyer on either side is expected to make the 
best possible statement of his case. He is not a witness, 
but an advocate, and his representation is accepted in this 
view. The hope is, that the resultant of the two opposing 
statements will be the clear and simple truth. This is the 
theory of the profession, and thus the obligations of verac- 
ity are not supposed to apply to the ordinary arguments 
or representations addressed to the court. If the lawyer 
should at any time assume the attitude of a witness, or 
state his positive opinion as a man, thus appealing to the 
confidence of the court, his professional privilege of mis- 
leading or deceiving must terminate. A false represen- 
tation, under such conditions, becomes unprofessional, as 
well as grossly immoral. That the subjective influence of 
the misrepresentation and sophistry allowed should be un- 
happy, is altogether credible ; and that truth and justice in 
the case are always served by the arrangement is not sup- 



DUTIES — VERACITY. 



309 



posable. It would seem strange that an advanced Chris- 
tian civilization should not have devised some less clumsy 
means of conducting legal investigations. 

The style of communication allowed in polite society, in 
complimentary address, in which more is said in words than 
is meant in the heart, is an outgrowth of insin- C ompiimenta- 
cerity and untruthfulness. It would be severe ry address - 
to bring upon every one who indulges such a habit the 
charge of untruthfulness. The words are taken for what 
they are usually held to mean, and allowance is made for 
their loss of force by the prevailing extravagance and insin- 
cerity. It cannot be doubted that the habit is demoraliz- 
ing, and that a higher type of social communication would 
exclude these flattering and unmeaning words. The work 
of improvement must begin with the heart, displacing all 
envy and selfishness by sincerity and good-will, rendering 
unmeaning and extravagant words unnecessary and unnat- 
ural. The utterance, on the other hand, of unamiable or 
hateful feelings, upon the plea of frankness, involves hypoc- 
risy, as offensive as positive falsehood. 

The practice of deceiving in small matters, for personal 
convenience, on the ground that these things are wholly 
of private interest, and no one has a right to Trifling 
know them, cannot be justified. There is room deceptions, 
for reasonable reticence in reference to one's opinions and 
private affairs ; but it is an unworthy and cowardly habit 
to use deception in regard to them. Truth is wholesome, 
and simple, and safe ; falsehood, managed with the pro- 
foundest skill, will fail in the very emergency it was sup- 
posed to serve. 

The instinct of veracity is one of the strongest of our 
ethical instincts, and its influence upon the character is 
most salutary. It is a great disaster to have it overborne 



3io 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



or broken down by loose personal habits, or by the false 
customs of social life. It should rather be guarded with 
instinct of jealous care, as the natural safeguard of per- 
veracity. sonal honor and character, and as one of the 
wholesome forces of society. Any calling, or profession, 
or practice, which tends to weaken or obliterate it, needs 
to be remodeled or discarded. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



DUTIES — CHASTITY. 

The virtue of chastity has its basis in the sexual consti- 
tution, and consists in a regulation of heart and conduct 
with reference to this constitution, according Nature of 
to the demands of benevolence. the duty * 

The duty is enjoined in the seventh commandment: 
"Thou shalt not commit adultery " ; the form of the pre- 
cept, as usual, being derived from the leading 

The precept. 

offense of the class, while the spirit of it ex- 
tends to all impurity of heart and life. It is not the oblit- 
eration of the constitutional propensity that is called for, 
but a subjecting of it to the claims of benevolence — the 
suppressing of even the thought of unlawful indulgence. 
The duty requires the cultivation of purity of heart, by ab- 
stinence from all thoughts, books, scenes, and associations 
which tend to corrupt the imagination or deprave the soul. 

There is, perhaps, no vice which, in its subjective reac- 
tion, so much degrades the entire nature as unchastity, 
making a wreck of both body and soul. Effect of 
Honor and self-respect, and modesty and unchastity. 
shame, fall together. The poet, whom we cannot suppose 
ignorant whereof he affirms, in his letter of counsel to a 
young friend, says : 

" I waive the quantum o' the sin, 
The hazard o' concealing, 
But ach! it hardens a' within, 
And petrifies the feeling." 
3ii 



312 MORAL SCIENCE. 

The wickedness of the offense, in its outward relations, 
can scarcely be overestimated. With a reckless disregard 
its crim- °f tne most sacred human instincts and inter- 
mahty. ests, it sacrifices the highest welfare to low, 

sensual pleasure. The poor excuse of temptation, the 
only excuse that sin ever has, is all that can be urged for 
it in the least aggravated cases of transgression. For those 
who, in their w r anton wickedness, make a spoil of innocence 
and purity, no condemnation can be too stern. The crime 
of murder fails in the comparison. 

Society is wont to deal unequally with the two parties 
to the transgression. The heartless man, loathsome in his 
unequal wickedness, often retains his place and respect- 
treatment, ability ; while for the sinning woman there is 
no toleration and little pity. She is certainly not to be 
held guiltless. She sins against the strongest instincts of 
modesty and self-respect, and encounters the most fright- 
ful consequences. It is a fearful sin, whatever the temp- 
tation. On the other hand, the man violates every senti- 
ment and claim of duty, takes the place of a tempter, and 
willfully degrades a being of whose modesty and fair fame 
and honor nature made him a guardian. It is common for 
the world to measure crime, in a great degree, by the con- 
sequences to the offender, and hence .the shallow discrimi- 
nation. The outward result of the sin, according to this 
view, constitutes its shame. 

The true idea of chastity provides for marriage — an in- 
stitution of divine appointment, arranged for in the human 
tuto^o™ constitution. Its beneficent influence is dem- 

Marriage 

provided for. onstrate d i n the history of the race. The 
whole tendency of the institution is elevating and en- 
nobling, adding to the excellence of human nature and to 
the value of life. The ascetic notion of chastity which has 



DUTIES — CHASTITY. 



313 



at times prevailed, exalting celibacy, and representing mar- 
riage as opposed to the highest sanctity of character, is not 
sustained in reason nor in human experience. Monasti- 
cism has yielded no flattering results. 

The marriage, which the true idea of chastity requires, 
is a union for life of one man with one woman. This order 
is indicated in nature in the personal and An exclusive 
exclusive character of the domestic affections, relatlon - 
and in the equal numbers of the sexes so mysteriously 
provided for. In Revelation, too, we have the fact of the 
creation of one of each sex at the beginning of the race. 
The early revelation and the indications of nature at the 
beginning were, however, not so clear but that good men 
might mistake. The problem was afterward wrought out 
in human experience, and the true arrangement was en- 
joined in the later revelation. Polygamy is a sin against 
nature, and always involves the degradation, especially, of 
the female sex. It makes man a lord and woman his serv- 
ant. Polyandry is an offense so gross that it has never 
existed as a system, and scarcely has a name. 

That the union must be for life is clear from the work 
which comes upon the family — the training of children and 
the care of dependent parents. The contem- 
plation of a dissolution of the union would de- 
stroy the confidence necessary for the undertaking ; while 
the actual dissolution would utterly frustrate the work, and 
throw great burdens upon the community. Thus the 
community becomes a party in the interest, - Societya 
and has the right to prescribe the permanency party, 
of marriage, and hold the parties to the union. This rela- 
tion to society renders marriage, in the nature of the case, 
an institution, as distinguished from a simple contract. But 
permanency is, if possible, more essential to the immediate 



314 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



interests of the family, than as a protection to the commu- 
nity. The idea of a dissolution of the family sets aside all 
Permanency tk&t is most sacred in the family relations, and 
essential. most precious in its benefits and blessings. 
The very thought of such dissolution is to be excluded by 
every possible influence and arrangement. The settled fact 
that the dissolution is impossible will have much to do in 
ruling out what might otherwise become occasions for it. 
There is true philosophy as well as simplicity in the remark 
of a husband to his wife : " My dear, it is of no use for us 
to quarrel, because we shall have to make up again." It 
is sometimes accounted. an offensive thing that the per- 
manency of marriage should be made to depend upon any 
outside constraint. But the constraint operates to secure 
the internal conditions out of which the permanency grows 
as a natural result. The necessity is not consciously felt, in 
most of the cases in which it may still have operated as a 
wholesome and potent force. 

A fair interpretation of the Saviour's teaching on this 
subject seems to convey the doctrine that release from the 
The saviour's obligations of marriage can be morally justi- 
rule> fied only on the ground of adultery — a crime 

which, in its very nature, involves a rupture of the mar- 
riage tie, and disorganizes the family. For this cause 
alone can either party properly put away the other. 
Against this Scripture view human reason can bring no 
satisfactory argument. Perhaps this absolute principle 
would never have been reached in the convictions of men 
without such a revelation, but the wisdom of it is justified 
in the light of the revelation. 

It is often maintained that willful and continued deser- 
tion is a moral ground of release from the obligations of 
marriage, and many Protestant ecclesiastical courts so 



DUTIES — CHASTITY. 3 I 5 

decide. But who can decide how long the way should 
be left open for repentance and return, and at what point 
the marriage obligation morally terminates? Another 
It is not an uncommon occurrence that de- view> 
sertions, supposed to be permanent at the outset, and so 
intended, come to a speedy end ; and the general recog- 
nition of the fact that the marriage obligation still survives, 
and is acknowledged even by the party that has suffered 
the wrong, will strongly tend to recall the deserter. 

The still looser view maintained by Milton and others, 
and gaining greater currency in our day, that unfortunate 
marriages, involving incompatibility of temper, incompati- 
should be dissolved, is demoralizing and dan- blllt y- 
gerous. The contemplation of a separation as possible will 
tend to foster the very incompatibilities which the separa- 
tion proposes to remedy. It would be wholly disastrous 
to have marriage regarded as an experiment, the perma- 
nency of it to be decided in each case by the experience 
of the parties. Under such a view, marriages would be 
arranged with little consideration, and as easily dissolved. 
We cannot afford to lose the moral power which comes 
from the permanency of the marriage obligation, in order 
to relieve the few who find themselves unfortunately allied. 
Facility of divorce cannot fail to multiply the occasions for 
divorce. 

There are cases in which a formal separation may be 
provided for, not releasing the parties from all obligation 
to each other, nor giving them liberty to form Allowable 
new marriages. It cannot be that a woman separation, 
is required to live with a husband maddened by intoxica- 
tion, or malice, or jealousy, to the peril of her life. But it 
does not follow that she may put him away irrevocably, 
and close the door forever against repentance and restora- 



316 



.MORAL SCIENXE. 



tion. An unfortunate marriage is a dire calamity, but fa- 
cility of divorce is not the remedy for such misfortunes. 

This, as I understand it, is the moral law in reference to 
the obligations of marriage, and the propriety of divorce, 
civil legis- The question what the civil law may allow and 
lation. provide for is altogether different. The civil 

law, as we have seen, is not always to be brought up to 
the standard of absolute morality. " For the hardness of 
the hearts " of men, it may be better to allow some lati- 
tude, under the regulation of the law, than to risk the gen- 
eral license which would follow the prohibition of all di- 
vorce. What the law permits is not necessarily morally 
right. In this view the law of divorce may properly be 
different in different states of society, but always tending 
to the point of perfect morality. 

The tendency to the multiplication of divorces in the 
land is cause for grave concern ; and the fact, as shown by 
Tendency statistics, that this tendency prevails in those 
alarming. portions of the land which have attained to the 
highest degree of intelligence and general culture, is still 
more alarming. It points to some radical defect in our 
civilization, or, at least, to some extravagance of individu- 
alism, springing from our progressive democracy. It is 
possible to press the great fact of individual rights beyond 
the limitations which are necessary to social institutions. 
In protecting the individual, we must not subvert the fam- 
ily, or other social institutions by which individual life is 
rendered valuable. 

Marriage being thus, in its very nature, exclusive, involv- 
ing exclusive relations between the two parties, any con- 
duct which tends to arouse suspicion or jealousy on either 
side is an offense against its obligations. It is not enough 
to avoid the overt acts of infidelity, which sunder the mar- 



D U T 1 E S — C H A ST IT V . 



317 



riage tie. All associations, friendships, familiarities, which 
tend to disturb confidence, are excluded by the relation. 
They are indelicate and inexcusable. The implied 
pure-hearted and thoughtful will repel them. obligations. 

Marriage between blood relatives of near relationship is 
a crime against nature, called incest. There is a natural 
sentiment against such connections, and they incestuous 
are prohibited by the laws of the land. This ™rria ge . 
prohibition is based on the established fact that the result 
of such connections is enfeebled offspring. The final cause 
or reason for the sentiment, and for the unhappy natural 
consequences, is supposed to be the preservation of the 
chastity of persons so closely associated, as members of the 
same family. It is also a safeguard against the clannish- 
ness which results from continual intermarriages in the 
same family connection. It binds different families to- 
gether, and extends the circle of society, and possibly 
prevents a derangement of human nature, by a constant 
reproduction and exaggeration of the same family traits. 

The foregoing survey of the field of practical morals 
cannot, of course, exhaust the subject. Every particular 
relation of moral beings, every change in concluding 
knowledge or condition, must give rise to new remarks, 
questions of duty, and to new applications of the great law 
of love. The law itself can never change — can neither be 
extended nor restricted. Wherever moral beings exist, 
under whatever conditions, this great principle of obligation 
embraces them, binding the universe together in one great 
family, and providing for the interests and the rights of the 
least and the greatest. It places God at the head of this 
great family, and claims for him the supreme regard and 
obedience of his creatures, and secures to them his provi- 
dential care — all the good that his infinite resources can 



3i8 



MORAL SCIENCE. 



command. It places finite beings side by side, upon a 
common platform of duties and of rights, and claims for 
each the equal regard and good-will of all. Whatever of 
substantial evil we experience in this world springs up in 
connection with the violation of this law of love; and the 
universal prevalence of the law would fill the universe with 
good. Under God's infinite and perfect control, universal 
benevolence must bring universal blessedness. 



INDEX. 



.Esthetic culture, 273. 

and personal power, 274. 
Ambition, 49. 
Amusements, 229. 

Authority, its extent in government, 
135- 

Authority of examples in the Script- 
ures, 139. 
Avarice, 49. 

Benevolence, 27. 

and opposing acts, 88. 

disinterested, 27. 

in consciousness, 27. 

in the Scriptures, 108. 

known as duty, 116. 

misapprehension of, 46. 

the theory of, 128. 

the universal law, 58. 

the selfish view, 106. 
Benevolent character, differences, 47. 
Business maxim, 242. 

Capital punishment, 160. 
Carnal-mindedness, 37. 
Character, ambiguity of term, 60. 

how changed in action, 93. 
Chastity, the virtue, 311. 
Children, duty to parents, 201. 
Choice of evils, 69. 
Cicero's example, 244. 
Civil government, 154. 
Claim of children, 202. 
Coexistence of virtue and sin, 84. 

3 



Complacency, 123. 
Completeness of character, 95. 
Conscience, 73. 

and education, 81. 

aesthetic, 74. 

and outward duty, 75. 

as a guide, 78. 

and feeling, 73. 

diverse views, 76. 

enlightened, 81. 

perverted, 82. 
Conscientious man, 78. 
Conscientiousness and conduct, 80. 

and sincerity, 80. 
Consequences, natural and providen 

tial, 153. 

Constitution of a government, 156. 
Contract, conditional, 297. 

implied, 297. 
Crime and ignorance, 164. 
Culture of the sensibility, 269. 

Danger in books, 271. 
Debt outlawed, 247. 
Declaration of Independence, 210. 
Defects from personal sin, 85. 
Degrees of goodness, 95. 

of sinfulness, 96. 
Demands of taste and fashion, 279. 
Democracy, unfavorable tendencies 

207. 

Depravity, total, 61. 

Desire and motive, an error, 104. 

Desire not sinfulj 31, 37, 5°« 

9 



320 



INDEX. 



Devotional sentiments, 53. 
Discipline and penalty, 147. 
Disobedience to unjust law, 175. 

when proper, 173. 
Divine and human law, difference, 

140. 

Divine government, 136. 
Divorce and civil law, 316. 
Divorce, when allowable, 315. 
Dueling, 220. 
Duties in war, 192. 
Duties, their basis, 211. 
Duty, ignorance of, 69. 

knowledge of, 70. 

of a subordinate in government, 
176. 

of exposing wrong, 235. 
of government to the criminal, 
171. 

to extend religion, 257. 

Emotion and character, 62. 
Ethics, definition, 13. 
Ethics, practical, 130. 
Euthanasia, 222. 
Evil-doer and his own good, 33. 
Evil for the sake of good, 68. 
Executive acts, 18. 
Expedient and right, 67. 
Expedient, knowledge of, 68. 

Factitious virtues, 55. 
Faith as virtue, 43. 
Family government, 193. 

headship, 194. 

its constitution, 194. 

its relation to society and the state, 
199. 

Fastidiousness, 276. 
Fidelity, a duty, 294. 
Free discussion, 227. 
Freedom of the press, 226. 
Free will, 15. 



Gambling, 247. 

God's character in the Scriptures, 118. 
God's law for families and nations, 
142. 

God's law personal, 141. 
God's right to govern, 136. 
Good, absolute and relative, 20. 

ambiguity of term, 122. 

in animals, 23. 

natural and moral, 28. 

our own, 26. 
Goodness, apparent, 57. 

of God, 117. 
Government, 132. 

and the majority, 157. 

and the will of the governed, 160. 

as a social compact, 157. 

as related to worship and education, 
228. 

de facto and de jure, 155. 

different forms, 154. 

its legitimate forms, 134. 

its proper end — two errors, 180. 

its proper extent, 227. 

its right to exist, 133. 

its sphere, 161. 

its tendency to democracy, 160. 
Gratitude as virtue, 40. 
Guilt everlasting, 149. 

Happiness, 25. 

Hickok's view of obligation, 119. 
Holy happiness, III. 
Honesty, 80. 

Human law and righteousness, 161. 
Humility as virtue, 43. 

Imitative goodness, 55. 
Immigration, a nation's right to limit, 

185. 
Impiety, 252. 
Impulsive goodness, 56. 
Incestuous marriage, 317. 



INDEX. 



321 



Indulgence of taste, its limit, 278. 
Influence of the true lady, 277. 
Intellect, 14. 

Intellectual culture a duty, 267. 
Intelligence and sinful action, 31. 

Janet's view of obligation, 1 20. 
Justice, 40. 

and benevolence, 41. 

Kindly affections, 53. 
Kind of happiness to be sought, in. 
Knowledge of duty, 130. 

of God most essential, 293. 

of God's law, 138. 

to be acquired, 268. 

Labor and capital, 248. 
Law of exchange, 241. 

of God's government, 137. 

of nations, 183. 

of wages, 244. 
Liberty, the right,- 223. 

for different faculties, 224. 

its limitations, 228. 

its violations, 230. 

misapprehension, 224. 

right of defense, 231. 
Love as virtue, 39. 

of complacency, 40, 250. 

Malevolent impulses, 51. 
Malice prepense, 62, 217. 
Managing the market, 243. 
Manslaughter, 217. 
Manual skill desirable, 280. 
Marriage, 197. 

an exclusive relation, 313. 

engagements, 298. 

engagements implied, 301. 

its relation to society, 313. 

necessarily permanent, 314. 
Means and ends, 68, 



Mercy, 42. 

and justice, 42. 
Misanthropy, 261. 
Moral act, 15. 

action, different forms, 17. 

agency, attributes of, 14. 

approval and disapproval, 52. 

being, 14. 

change obligatory, 61. 

consistency, 63. 

depravity, 60. 

element, where found, 16. 

nature predominant, 282. 

science, 13. 

two kinds, 19, 51. 
Morality and religion, 201. 
Morality, personal, 59. 
Morality, relative, 117. 
Motive and freedom, 105. 
Motive and the intelligence, 105. 
Motives mixed, 86. 
Motives of the good and the bad, 107. 
Murder, guilt of, 216. 

National duty of self-preservation, 
185. 

National sin, 143. 

Nations, their mutual relations, 182. 
Natural good, 20. 
Natural good and evil, 15. 
Natural love of virtue, 52. 
Notoriety and usefulness, 288. 

Oath, its proper force, 298, 304. 
Obedience as virtue, 44. 

of the child, a limit, 203. 

to government, a limit, 172. 
Obligation and ability, 84. 

and an obliger, 115. 

and personal worthiness, 118. 

and personal perfection, 121. 

and the reason, 121. 

and the will of God, 114. 



322 



[NDEX. 



Obligation, definition, 13. 
different theories, 98. 
feeling of, 82. 
how perceived, 25. 
in the divine reason, 118. 
of nations, 182. 

Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, 100. 

theory of right as ultimate, 124. 
Occupations, when criminal, 218. 
Occupation to be chosen, 285. 

Paley's definition of virtue, 102. 
Parental affection, 200. 
Parents, duty to children, 201. 
Partial benevolence, 87. 
Particular vices, 48. 
Party spirit and patriotism, 262. 
Past sinlessness, 97. 
Patriotism a duty, 261. 
Patriotism and benevolence, 261. 
Penalty and natural consequences, 
150. 

and ill-desert, 145. 

in civil government, 164. 

in divine government, 148. 

its extent, 146. 

its nature and effect, 144. 
Perfection of character, 272. 
Personal manners and habits, 281. 
Personal rights and duties, 210. 
Philanthropy a duty, 259. 

and religion, 259. 

its scope, 260. 

test of, 260. 
Physical culture a duty, 280. 

its proper aim, 282. 
Physical law and morality, 141. 

and penalty, 157. 
Piety, the duty, 249. 

and benevolence, 249. 

and religion, 250. 
Prayer, possibility and duty, 253. 

objections, 253. 



President Edwards, 27. 
Pride and vanity, 50. 
Principle in action, 127. 
Profanity, its nature, 305. 
Promise, in what sense binding, 
295- 

Promises and contracts, 294. 
Promise, unfair or unjust, 296. 
Property, how acquired, 237. 

in animals, 240. 

in human beings, 240. 

its liabilities, 241. 

its limitations, 240. 

its possession a right, 237. 
Punishment, the reason for, 145. 

Refinement true and false, 275. 
Remorse and penalty, 152. 
Representation and taxation, 158. 
Reputation a good and a right, 
232. 

Responsibility of wealth, 289. 

Retaliation, 220. 

Revealed law of God, 138. 

Revelation needed, 71. 

Ridicule, its place, 235. 

Right and duty of voting, 158. 

Right and duty to govern, 133. 

Right and wrong, absolute, 64. 
objective and subjective, 65. 
per se, 66. 
relative, 64. 

Right character, 38. 

Rightfulness of the oath, 304. 

Right judgments, 57. 

Right of conscience under govern- 
ment, 178. 

Right of government to compel serv- 
ice, 219. 

Right of life, 216. 

Right of property in the decalogue, 
238. 

Right of revolution, 177. 



INDEX. 



Right of self-preservation, 218. 
Right or virtuous action, 20. 
Rights and duties correlated, 212. 
Rights inalienable, 2 1 1. 
Rights of a rational being, 214. 
Rights of brutes, 213. 
Rights, their basis, 210. 
Right to govern, 154. 
Right to remedy defect in govern 

ment, 177. 
Ruler, how designated, 134. 
Rulers and servants, 159. 
Rules of personal conduct, 230. 

Sabbath, change of day, 255. 

its institution, 254. 

obligation permanent, 236. 

proper observance, 257. 
Saul's conscientiousness, 79. 
School government, 204. 
Seelye's view of obligation, 120. 
Self-control, 270. 
Self-culture, a duty, 265. 

and benevolence, 266. 

its extent, 265. 

the true ideal, 265. 
Self-defense, 219. 

objections to, 221. 
Self-denial, 42. 
Selfishness, 50. 
Sensibility, 14. 
Sensuality, 49. 

Simplicity of moral action, 83. 

in consciousness, 91. 

in the Scriptures, 89. 

objections, 91. 
Sin and self-gratification, 36. 
Sin and selfishness, 33. 
Sinful action not the object of choice, 
33- 

the end in, 32. 
the form of, 30. 
Sinful acts, 48. 



Sinful character, 48. 
Sin in thought and feeling, 85. 
Sin, its unity, 48. 

Metcalf's view of, 103. 
Sins of ignorance, 77. 
Slander, temptations to, 233. 
Social life, its claims, 291. 
Spencer's " Ethics," 112. 
- Spiritual self-culture, 266. 
Standard of value, 243. 
Summum bonum, 24. 
Supererogation, 58. 

Taylor's view of virtue, 102. 
Teacher and pupil, relation of, 204. 
Temptation and desire, 37. 

and guilt, 96. 
Theory of right as ultimate, 1 14. 
difficulties of, 126. 
maxim and axiom, 125. 
Things not to be property, 239. 
Threat and promise, 295. 
Toleration, limits of, 226* 
Total abstinence, 229. 
Truthfulness, objective and subjec- 
tive, 303. 
Tyranny and government, 156. 

Ultimate choice, 18, 62. 
Unchastity, its criminality, 312. 
Unpatriotic tendencies, 263. 
Usefulness a duty, 284. 
Utilitarianism, wrong use of term, 
109. 

Utility and executive action, 109. 
Utility of benevolence, 108. 

Veracity, 303. 
as virtue, 43. 

complimentary address, 307. 
limits of obligation, 306. 
privilege of the advocate, 308. 
the instinct of, 310. 



INDEX. 




324 

Veracity, violations of, 309. 

words and gestures, 308. 
Violations of property-right, 246. 
Virtue and sin contradictory, 83. 

and the emotions, 45. 

deficient in intensity, 87. 

growth in, 94.' 

modern theories of, 101. 

the Epicurean view, 101. 

two grades of, 123. 

view of the Stoics, 101. 
Virtues, impulsive, 54. 

special, 38. 

their relation, 46. 
Virtuous acts, 38. 



Virtuous exercises, common element, 
45- 

War, its rightfulness, 186. 

objections to, 188. 

unnecessary, 192. 
Wealth, its proper uses, 289. 
Woman's wages, 245. 
Work and pay, 286. 
Work and wages, 245. 
Worship, a duty, 252. 

social and public, 254. 
Wrong or sinful action, 29. 

the motive, 29. 

unreasonable, 29. 



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